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New York 

THE SELB PRESS 

1915 










COPYRIGHT, 1915, 

BY 

WM. ARMIN SBIBERT 



PUBLISHED NOVEMBER, 

1915 



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^!QV 20 1915 

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THE ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

^'^Another Young Officer, in Different 

Uniform'' Frontispiece 

An Old Scrap 53 

A War Office Passport 79 

Allenstein, Hohes Tor 82 

Russian Expert Work 86 

In Ortelsburg 88 

East Prussian Street 94 

A Scientist's Letter . 125 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Fellow Travellers 9 

11. Fishy-Eyes 16 

III. Warships 21 

IV. ''Where Is Bolivia. Anyhow?''. 25 

V. Cesar's Ghost 33 

VI. Petticoat Diplomacy 41 

VII. Border Knowledge 49 

VIII. A Cleansing Bath 56 

IX. Wartime Women 60 

X. A Lecture 67 

XI. In the War Office 71 

XII. In East Prussia 77 

XIII. Near the Russian Border 84 

XIV. Fiction-Factories 93 

XV. Among Wounded 102 

XVI. Commuting Swiss Soldiers .... 110 

XVII. A Familiar Odor 117 

XVIII. Noble Gratitude 121 

7 



I 

FELLOW TRAVELLERS 

The HoUandish steamer Botherdam had the 
bkie peter in her foremast on a bright morning 
of September, 1914, ready to leave her Hoboken 
pier at noon with thirty first class passengers, 
among them six women but no children. 

There were no relatives and friends of the 
travellers to bid them good-bye, for no one was 
allowed aboard without a passport. The band 
did not play. There was no band. No crowd, no 
laughter, no flowers, no small flags to wave and 
no loud word spoken. Instead whispers, sober 
faces, furtive glances, empty corridors and many 
empty staterooms. The whole show looked like 
the preparation for a funeral, our own funeral, 
but a disorderly one for my steamer trunk had 
disappeared. 

During the two hours after the announced time 
of departure while the captain waited for the 
appearance of a certain diplomat (who was to be 
a passenger), an extensive search on the dock and 
in the rooms of the ship made by the cabin stew- 
ard and his chief, at last resulted in finding the 
trunk in a corner of the second class dining room 
with its face to the wall. 
9 



Great Rabin ! Most famous of all chief stew- 
ards of the North German Lloyd (now on a vaca- 
tion), if this had occurred on one of your boats 
your hair would have risen and possibly turned 
grey, even so, like that of the most famous quar- 
antine expert, Robert Koch, if he had seen the 
subordinates of the Health Officer of the port of 
New York attempt to disinfect the baggage of 
the passengers on the forward deck of the steamer 
Elbe, on October the second, 1892, by scrubbing 
the outer surfaces of the trunks with brushes 
dipped in carbolized soap water to prevent the 
Asiatic cholera, then prevalent in Hamburg, from 
taking root in New York. But no, on second 
thought, there would have been no ascending of 
hair for both of these famous men were bald- 
headed. 

The expected diplomat did not appear and the 
Bother dam started without him. A check re- 
turned from his bank with the remark "insuffi- 
cient funds," had detained him. Nothing in that, 
for no doubt other members of his profession will 
have a similar experience before and after this 
war is over. 

Of course, I was shocked at the behavior of my 
trunk. After hanging up my clothes and dis- 
tributing the photographs of my family about the 
room to make it look homelike, I examined it. 
The patches were all there and the lock worked. 

"What caused you to behave like this T' I ad- 
10 



dressed the trunk. "You came into my service 
twenty-two years ago, you have crossed the At- 
lantic thirty odd times since, you have been in 
Mexico when Diaz was still in command there, 
you have been in many tight places and you have 
been patched so often that but little of your orig- 
inal hide is left. You are an aristocrat among 
trunks and, possibly, you were spoiled last sum- 
mer when strapped to an automobile taking my 
wife over the Dolomites in the Austrian Tyrol to 
show her the mountain passes along the Italian 
border her husband had crossed afoot and awheel 
in the company of a young Prussian army officer, 
two years before. Did you hide because this boat 
is not a German ocean grey-hound, or did you 
intend to remind me that you and I were too old 
for the job ahead of us? Not so! Easy times 
have gone. This is wartime, of which you know 
nothing.^^ 

At lunch, outside of Sandy Hook, I was seated 
in the midst of five of the half dozen women in 
our cabin. Two of these, the Misses Krueger, 
were sisters-in-law of a well-known New York 
surgeon returning to their home in Berlin; the 
third, Mrs. Barens, an American of Anglo-Saxon 
origin, who had been caught in the war while 
visiting her parents in New Jersey, was returning 
to her German husband and children ; to my left, 
the only young girl in the company. Miss Whiet- 
ing, with brown eyes and graceful poise and 
11 



figure^ crossing to meet her sick mother in Rot- 
terdam, and to my right the primest, best dressed 
and best humored white-haired woman I had ever 
met at sea or on land, Mrs. Luebben. She had 
made a tour of our httle globe, had heard of the 
war while in Alaska and was hurrying to her 
home in Hannover, Germany, because her two 
sons were officers in the army. When during the 
small talk of a first mutual meal I had admitted 
that my sixtieth birthday had been passed^ she 
lifted her finger and announced : "I can beat 
you ; Tm sixty-five !" 

In the smoking room a fat but distinguished 
looking Dr. Auer with American clothes and 
diploma going over to do Red Cross work armed 
with an Austrian passport, and a bespectacled 
Kalamazoo lawyer, Mr. Vandal, with a shrill 
voice and an American passport, joined me while 
sipping cofifee. They were surprised to learn that 
I had no Red Cross connections, more so when I 
dropped into German to relieve them and my ears 
of their painful accents, but appeared completely 
puzzled when, after using the Saxon, the Suavian 
and the Austro-Hungarian dialects during the 
conversation, I concluded the interview with a 
story given in the Irish brogue. They had intro- 
duced me to the third medical passenger, a Dr. 
Lange of Weimar, Germany, who had come from 
Paraguay, South America, to answer the call of 
his country. Tall, blond, bright and thirty, full 
12 



of fun and well-mannered, he, like Mr. Vandal 
and Dr. Auer never conversed with me again 
until the Botherdam dropped anchor at the Hook 
of Holland. 

There was Mr. Berkely Freeman a fruit grower 
from California; two strapping Anglo-Saxon 
Canadians in the Dutch East India service going 
back to their work in Batavia after a six months' 
vacation; an officer of the American army. Cap- 
tain McManemy, bound for Vienna to study Aus- 
trian artillery in action, and the sunny South had 
contributed to our passenger list in the person of 
Mr. Culbertson from South Carolina, a cotton 
merchant who had spent the last fifteen years in 
Bremen. He had taken his wife and young boys 
to his Southern home at the outbreak of the war 
and was returning with a suitcase, to wind up his 
European business for the time being. We learned 
from him (a young man of thirty) that Bremen 
imported more American cotton than any other 
port on earth. He was one of the very few 
Anglo-Saxons I had met who could speak cor- 
rect German, but he had been at school in 
Bremen. 

By common consent the fellow pa&senger best 
informed on international topics of trade, travel 
and present conditions in most countries was Mr. 
Praetor, an American fur trader having a branch 
business in Leipzig, Germany, a large man in 
English clothes, with a sharp, clean-shaven face. 
13 



His only son, aged nineteen, had been "detained" 
in Russia at the outbreak of the war. 

"Yes, I shall have to go for the boy by way of 
Sweden," he remarked coolly. "We have many 
friends in Russia. They and money will release 
him. The rubel is omnipotent there, like the dol- 
lar in America." 

Aside of a few commercial travellers rep- 
resenting large American concerns and half a 
dozen Hollanders (among them an ex-admiral of 
the Dutch navy), one more passenger appeared 
noteworthy, Mr. Bruck, a Bolivian with tanned 
skin and dark eyes, in South American clothes. 
During the many hours spent in the smoking 
room the Bolivian invariably sat among the Ger- 
man-Austrian passengers staring blankly into 
space, unless addressed in Spanish. He drank no 
liquor, wine or beer, and he always appeared 
bareheaded. And he did not smoke, a fact which 
made me think. 

The conversation at our .table, with the first 
officer of the ship in our midst, was conducted in 
German, English and French. The big, good- 
natured seaman answered in either tongue, but 
Miss Whieting insisted on answering in English 
although her pronunciation reminded me of the 
idiom of that part of Brooklyn formerly called 
Williamsburgh. 

The ship's surgeon, Dr. Shields, an American 
who had spent some years at sea in the service 
14 



of the Holland-America Line, was a handsome, 
well-mannered man of thirty-five, who treated his 
elder colleague in the best manner possible. Like 
most of our fraternity he had a hobby, a farm 
on Long Island, where his childless wife raised 
fancy animals from donkeys down to dogs and 
pigeons, instead of children. Daily he presented 
his patients to his colleague, thereby whiling 
away many an hour of this long voyage. To my 
astonishment I found that when he conversed 
with his patients in Hollandish, I understood this 
better than the Bavarian and Swiss dialects. 

The gait of Captain McManemy on deck be- 
trayed his West Point training readily, but he 
spoke English only. How he had been able to 
gain information during the French army 
manoeuvres which he had attended the year before 
and could profit on the battlefields of Austria 
without conversation seemed so mysterious, that 
I jocularly offered to give him lessons, which he 
accepted with alacrity. He, the typical modern 
warrior trained to destroy human enemies in sci- 
entific manner, and I, trained to destroy the para- 
sites in human beings, understood one another 
well, although he never requested me to answer a 
single medical question, nor I a military one of 
him. His parents were born in Ireland and he 
proved to have the linguistic talent of his race to 



a marked degree. 



15 



II 

FISHY-EYES 

The steward in charge of my room had sparse 
yellow hair, a short, stocky figure and light-blue, 
fishy eyes. It took him three days to go through 
my baggage and clothes in search for contraband 
and compromising papers, because he could only 
do this safely while I was bathing at 6 :30 a. m. 
I chuckled in the water when thinking how hard 
the scoundrel was working to earn pin money, 
and all in vain. On the fourth day out my be- 
longings had not been touched, but every nook 
and corner of the room including the life-preserv- 
ers and mattress, had been thoroughly overhauled. 
Even some glass bottles containing drugs, stand- 
ing in the rack, had been opened. 

That afternoon I awoke with a start from my 
accustomed mid-day nap, and found Fishy-Eyes 
standing aside of my bed. He had attempted to 
inspect the papers I carried on my person, for 
those left in my trunk he was well acquainted 
with by this time. 

"Halloh, what's the row?'' I inquired with an 
artificial yawn. 

'^There is a steamer heading for us and I 
thought you might be interested because it may 
16 



be an English warship,'' the man answered with 
a cold stare and without embarrassment. 

"You are very attentive and evidently a jewel 
among stewards/' I replied, "but this time you 
have put yourself to unnecessary trouble because 
warships do not interest me, but, — coming to 
think of it — when talking to your comrades in the 
corridor you had better lower your voice because 
I understand Hollandish and, besides, be careful 
not to touch those bottles in the rack because you 
might acquire Asiatic cholera, spotted typhus or 
the bubonic plague and die, before this boat 
reaches Holland/' 

Fishy-Eyes turned pale and large beads of per- 
spiration appeared on his forehead, but he kept his 
nerve. 

"All the same, you are a German/' he spouted 
out hoarsely, "and the British will take you off. 
You have fooled all on this ship, but you can't 
fool me !" 

"I never intended to ^fool' anyone, least of all 
a steward/' I laughed. "The pure German blood 
in my veins I am rather proud of. But do not 
worry about my safety. And now you may 



so 



V' 



On the second day out Mrs. Luebben told me 
that our table neighbor, Miss Whieting from 
Brooklyn, was drinking champagne in the smok- 
ing room alone among the younger men. I was 
shocked. Evidently this young girl, crossing for 
17 



the first time^ knew nothing of international man- 
ners. She was exposing herself. Mrs. Luebben 
declined to interfere with a shrug of her shoulder 
and a twinkle in her eye. 

'^It is your duty to protect this 'green' American 
girl and to teach her European manners. If you 
decline, I will talk to her myself V I asserted an- 
grily. And I did when the culprit came out of 
the smoking room with red cheeks, surrounded 
by laughing young men. She came to the railing 
at my request, where the difference between 
American and European aspects regarding the 
conduct of a young girl travelling alone were 
explained in few words, emphasized by mention- 
ing my wife and married daughters and, in con- 
clusion, by saying: 

"If your mother were here, she would agree 
with me.'^ 

The girl listened to the short lecture with 
drooping eyelids. 

"You are a good man,^' she answered slowly 
with a shake in -her voice, "and you certainly 
mean well but, if you knew all, you would not 
have addressed me so harshly.^^ 

"Fm not curious,^^ I retorted gruffly, "and your 
private affairs do not concern me, but as a citi- 
zen of the United States I hate to see an Ameri- 
can girl place herself in a false position.^^ 

"But Doctor, I only drank one glass of cham- 
pagne !" the girl argued with genuine feminine 
18 



logic and a bright smile. I stared at her, then 
touched my cap and walked away. 

At dinner that evening, the chair to my left 
remained vacant. Instead, Miss Whieting came 
into the dining room "all dressed up" like a 
woman of the world when the fish was being 
served, handed in by Captain McManemy, U.S.A. 
Next morning at breakfast, Mrs. Luebben 
broached the subject. 

"Don't you bother me with the conduct of this 
girl/' I exclaimed, chagrined by the conviction of 
having made a false diagnosis. "She claims to 
study art. No doubt she does, but her methods 
are too modern for me, for I do not recognize a 
woman unless she is a daughter, a sister, a wife 
or a mother.'' 

After this the girl never took her dinner with 
us, but was taken to the other table by some male 
passenger every evening. During lunch she never 
addressed me and I treated her like thin air, but 
during the evening hours in the smoking room 
which she invariably spent among the German- 
Austrian contingent I detected her frowning eyes 
resting on me^ in the American corner, very often. 
Usually she breakfasted in the company of young 
Dr. Lange and otherwise spent so much of her 
time with him that Mrs. Luebben predicted smil- 
ingly on the sixth day out: "There will be an 
engagement announced before we leave this ship !" 
Kind Mrs. Luebben ! Her two sons were in the 
19 



war and she knew herself to be in personal dan- 
ger, and yet she enjoyed the prospect of seeing a 
young girl becoming a bride on the ocean during 
wartime. A fine illustration of the maternal in- 
stinct ! 

Mr. Berkely Freeman from California joined 
me in a deck-walk that evening. The weather 
was clear and the stars were out. 

"It is a fine sensation to walk the deck of a 
neutral ship on the free ocean during wartime/' 
he remarked. "I feel elated to-night for being a 
free citizen of the United States^ at peace with 
the whole world V" 

My companion was a typical American of 
Anglo-Saxon origin, sixty-one years of age. Dur- 
ing the last twenty years he had done business 
with Germany, had been there often and had in- 
variably been treated decently. He was an opti- 
mist regarding the future of the United States 
in general and of California in particular, but he 
had only a "^newspaper" knowledge of European 
conditions, the present international situation and 
of history, and thereby represented the bulk of 
the American people very well. At the railing I 
pointed to the water. 

"You termed this the free ocean?" I inquired. 

"Sure \" he answered. 

"Well, mark my word. Before you put your feet 
on land again you will realize that this sheet of 
water, called the Atlantic, is but a British pond !" 
20 



Ill 

WARSHIPS 

After lunch on the seventh day out, a steward 
burst into the smoking room shouting: "War- 
ships !" 

Sure enough^ the smoke of three steamers 
dotted the Eastern horizon, equally far apart. 

"It seems strange," I addressed the army offi- 
cer after handing back his binoculars, "that the 
British send their cruisers six hundred miles West 
of the Scillies to intercept neutral merchant ships. 
We ought to feel proud for being received so far 
out by a whole squadron I" 

A half hour later on our engines stopped and 
H. M. S. Charybdis came alongside, a half mile 
away. She was an old tub of about 5000 tons,* 
with a long gun on her forward, a like one on 
her rear deck and smaller artillery on her sides. 
Over her bow she wore a shield covering the hole 
formerly used for torpedo expulsion, conspicuous 
like a patch on a trouser-seat. There was a swell 
on the sea and the small cruiser's ends rose and 
fell, while our steamer layed steady. The war- 



*Wheii beached on one of the Bermuda islands a 
few months later on as a total loss, her displacement 
was given as 4450 tons. 

21 



ship lowered a boat, and it was a fine sight to see 
how the cutter dropped on the water, the wet 
blades of the oars glittering in the sunlight at 
regular intervals. It reminded one of RussePs 
maritime novels, read in times gone by. 

The cutter came alongside. The officer coming 
over the railing first was a fine human specimen, 
good nature spread all over his face when he 
shook hands with our chief mate. He was fol- 
lowed by a boy of possibly fifteen years, who 
stalked over the deck with sober face and threw 
out his abnormally big feet in a manner as though 
he attempted to do the German parade march 
sideways. A handsome young sailor with signal 
flags stuck in his bosom shirt closed the proces- 
sion, disappearing on the stairs leading to the 
bridge. 

During the two hours he signalled to the 
Charyhdis, an inspection of the cutter was possi- 
ble. The fourteen men in canvass uniform who 
had handled the oars appeared to be stocky and 
well-fed, but none of them under forty years. 
Three had full beards, three others mustaches and 
the rest were clean-shaven. One wore black, a sec- 
ond tan shoes, and a third canvass slippers, while 
the rest were barefooted. All had life-preservers 
on their shoulders, the chest and the waist, cork 
enough on each to float a dead whale, and this in 
a swell of the sea which any American fisherman 
in a flat-bottomed boat would have laughed at. 
22 



"You may smoke !^^ the boarding officer had 
called down to his men. Two stuffed their pipes, 
but judging from the way the rest smoked cigar- 
ettes, the British admiralty will have a larger 
bill for this luxury than for shot and shell when 
this war is over. 

No weapons were visible on the men who 
boarded the ^otherdain and among those in the 
cutter, but when the one at the tiller at last bent 
his back sufficiently forward, long strings of cart- 
ridges in the bottom of his craft came into view. 

Our uninvited guests came down from the 
bridge in the same order they went up, '^^Liliput" 
(as he had been dubbed since) spreading and 
clapping down his big shoes, evidently borrowed 
for the occasion, on deck in an even more im- 
pressive manner than before. We learned that 
the boy had taken down the "wigg-wagg'^ notes. 
After lying quietly for another half hour, our 
engines worked again and the Bother dam headed 
for Queenstown by order of the British admiralty, 
with her wireless taken down. 

"This gives me a first chance to see the land 
of my ancestors !" the American artillery officer 
exclaimed grimly, when we heard the news, 

"Ah, Captain, this explains all !" I put in. 
"The British Sealords, who evidently knew this, 
thought to pay you, the military representative 
of the United States, a compliment by ordering 
our steamer to Ireland.'^ 
23 



Mr. Berkely Freeman, from California, took 
my arm for a stroll along the deck. The dear old 
fellow appeared perturbed. 

"Why does the captain of this neutral ship ac- 
cept orders from the British ?" he whispered when 
we were alone. 

"Because his ship is on British property V I 
answered. "If he had been ordered to steam to 
Gibraltar or even back to Hoboken, he would have 
obeyed, for as yet ^Britannia rules the wave' out- 
side of the three-mile limit from Sandy Hook or 
any other coast on this little earth, Helgoland 
excepted/' I answered. 

"Ah ! I understand now why you called the 
Atlantic ocean a 'British pond' the other even- 
ing!" the Californian exclaimed excitedly. "By 
God, I thought then that you were cracking one 
of your sarcastic jokes on me. But do you really 
believe that Germany has a chance to win in this 
war ?" 

"I gave up believing many years ago, and my 
knowledge is my private property!" I answered. 
"And now I'm going to take a nap." 



24 



IV 
"WHERE IS BOLIVIA, ANYHOW?" 

Forty hours steaming brought us into Queens- 
town harbor where two anchors were dropped 
and two searchlights illumined our decks from 
shore during the following three nights. Only 
those accustomed to cold water could take a 
bath as the fires were out^ and no warm water 
ran into the tubs. Likewise no tobacco or alco- 
hol, in any shape or form^ could be bought on 
board while there. 

The weather was cold and the only way to keep 
warm was to tramp the deck vigorously or to stay 
in bed. The surrounding landscape was beautiful, 
but even the finest scenery may become monoto- 
nous if one is compelled to view it during four 
consecutive days. 

A small tug deposited a half dozen men in un- 
clean clothes, armed with thieves^ lanterns, on our 
deck to search the hold for contraband goods, and 
later on the American consul and a British army 
officer in khaki, with a monocle in one eye-socket 
and a baby cane in his hand, boarded the Bother- 
dam from a fine gasolene launch. 
25 



Meanwhile our stewards went fishing from the 
railing all day long. Whenever a small porgy 
was landed, a great shout went up in the air. 
They were the descendants of men who had 
fought the English successfully under De Ruyter. 

During the next forenoon a bald-headed lawyer 
from somewhere in Pennsylvania rushed up to me 
on deck. 

"Do you know that every male and female pas- 
senger with a German name is going to be taken 
from this ship to a British detention camp?" he 
inquired excitedly with blanched features. 

"Who told you this ?" I inquired. 

"One of the men on the tug," he whispered. 

"Rubbish !" I answered scornfully, for cowards 
try my temper. "Your news does not concern 
me." 

"But your name is German/^ the man protested. 

"Quite so," I retorted, "and an ancient one at 
that. You can find it on the oldest slab of West- 
minster Abbey in London. Good morning!" 

The appetites of the ladies appeared impaired 
at luncheon on that day, some barely touching 
food. One of the Misses Krueger had tears in 
her eyes, Mrs. Barens was red in her face, appar- 
ently next to hysteria, and even Mrs. Luebben 
treated me with icy reserve. 

The Calif ornian broached the subject of the 
day, giving his opinion on English chivalry, ulti- 
mately winding up with the question : 
26 



"What have you to say, Doctor ?'' 

"Fm not a member of the British cabinet, thank 
goodness," I repHed, "and therefore cannot pre- 
dict our immediate future. But, I take it, that 
they are not anxious to increase the number of 
women on their islands. They now are looking 
for men to do their fighting. They evidently 
joined this war to rid themselves of the suffra- 
gettes pestering them." 

"Oh, drop your jokes, Doctor !" Mrs. Barens 
exclaimed. "It does not concern you whether we 
German women are to be taken off or not. You 
are a safe outsider in this. Whatever you may be, 
you certainly are no German !" 

The lady made a fine appearance in her wrath. 
With her flashing blue eyes, her regular features 
and large perfect frame, she certainly looked the 
typical descendant of the ancient Saxons who 
conquered Britain. She was now going back, 
after centuries, to the old German home. 

"When answering Mr. Freeman's question I 
was in earnest," I protested drily. "If the cackle 
of geese on the capitol could save Rome, then the 
activity of suffragettes could assist in bringing 
England into this war. Small causes with great 
effects are not so uncommon ! But your assump- 
tion as to my nationality is correct, for in Ger- 
many I am classed and treated as an outlander." 

On the third day of our captivity the male 
cabin passengers were ordered to show their pass- 
27 



ports to Captain Dickie of the British army sit- 
ting on the sofa in the smoking room with his 
cap on, aside of the bare-headed master of the 
ship. I came in late and missed hearing an old 
German, dubbed "Uncle Carl/' read off a written 
protest addressed to the British government 
against our detention. The Bolivian stood before 
me in the line. Through Mr. Vandal, who volun- 
teered to interpret the South American's Spanish, 
we learned that his papers had been stolen in 
Buenos Ayres, that his father, a German, had died 
long ago, that his mother was a native Bolivian 
and that he was bound for Germany to collect an 
inheritance. 

"Have you served in the German army?" he 
was asked. 

"No !'' the man answered with emphasis. 

"Rave you ever been in Germany ?" the British 
officer continued. 

"This is the first time I ever left Bolivia V' Mr. 
Bruck asserted. 

Captain Dickie looked bored. Turning to the 
commander of the Botherdam, he inquired : 

"Bolivia ! Captain, where is Bolivia, anyhow ?" 

The Dutch seaman explained politely that Bo- 
livia was a part of the South American comment. 
1 fairly held my breath. Mr. Vandal, Dr. Auer 
and Mr. Praetor, standing near, looked sober, 
but a few men in the background turned to hide 
their mirth. 

28 



After inspecting my passport (giving age, 
height and appearance) the officer drawled: 

"I hope you can speak some EngHsh/' 

"Weh, I shotdd think so !" I responded 
promptly. 

"Oh, I see you're a native," Captain Dickie an- 
swered visibly relieved. 

Pointing at the passenger list and imitating the 
English drawl slowly, I requested : "In checking 
off my name, would you mind adding 'M.D.'? 
Fm a stickler on titles, don't you know.'' 

The British officer appeared highly amused. 

"Just so/' he laughed. "You shall certainly 
have your title !" 

The American consul was standing near a cor- 
ner table of the smoking room ready to advise 
and aid his compatriots, in conversation with 
Captain Mac, as his fellow passengers called him 
for short. No other American citizens were near. 
Knowing that the artillerist needed no help, it 
occurred to me to be a patriotic duty to give our 
consul some work and handing him a single 
paged, typewritten document impressed by a seal, 
I requested : 

"Consul, would you mind looking at this?" 

There were but few sentences. The consul 
read the signature aloud and returning the paper 
he said hastily : 

"Oh, yes ! I remember the name. Just so. Oh, 



29 



I was astonished. The consul was a young 
man of thirty-five. 

"You are in a hurry, Doctor ?" he continued. 

"Of course !" I retorted. 

"This steamer will be released in a day or two, 
I believe/^ he remarked, "but I can manage that 
you and Captain McManemy can proceed, by way 
of London, to-day." 

"Are the boats from Hull to the Hook of Hol- 
land running now?'^ I inquired. 

"I do not know. In fact we know nothing here 
about transportation," the consul answered. 

"Then I will consult Captain McManemy," I 
replied. 

"This is worth while considering," the latter 
remarked after musing some time. "I have never 
been in England, and it would be interesting to 
spend a few days in London in your company. 
You know the town, of course?" 

"Yes," I answered, "but I doubt if a stay there 
now would be as pleasant as my former visits 
were. At best, we would be treated with suspi- 
cion for which the Londoners could not be 
blamed, for you are bound for Vienna and I for 
Berlin. Besides, we would have to cross the 
North Sea on a small English side-wheeler to 
reach Holland." 

"But, Doctor, the British navy control the 
water. No German warship would come in 
sight!" Captain Mac laughed. 
30 



"Right you are^ Britannia rules the waves of 
the ocean^ but she is not in command lower down 
in the water. Fm not a coward but also no idiot 
not to prefer a neutral ship, when I have the 
choice. Besides, I would hate to be blown up by 
a German submarine because my parents were 
born in Germany, like yours in Ireland," I argued. 

The warrior gave me a cold stare. 

"ril stay with you on the Botherdam'' he re- 
plied after a while, "but aside of languages and 
medicine you apparently have studied naval archi- 
tecture also.^^ 

"God forbid \" I replied astonished. "My good- 
natured brother always had to assist me in rnathe- 
matics." 

After luncheon the British officer took his 
American comrade ashore for an outing, and be- 
fore dinner the rumor spread through the ship 
that none of the cabin passengers would be taken 
off and that the Botherdam might be released 
on the following day, as no contraband had been 
found in her hold. During the dinner the bald- 
headed Pennsylvanian, now in high feather, tin- 
gled his glass and invited all to the smoking room 
to sample the contents of a keg containing "the 
best vintage of Ireland," alleged to have been sent 
aboard by the American consul. 

At 9 p. M. the passengers had assembled and 
were chatting and laughing like happy children. 
Captain Mac in their midst, happiest of all, while 
31 



the six Hollanders kept aloof, playing domino. 
But when I found that the fluid in the keg re- 
sembled a solution of quinine in ink much more 
than any wine or beer I had ever tasted, I pro- 
posed Captain Mac as chairman of the meeting 
to get square with him for he, of course, and not 
the consul had sent this stuff aboard. 

The artillerist accepted the chair with dignity, 
and began : "Ladies and gentlemen !" and raising 
his hands as though bestowing a blessing, without 
another word sat down again, thus finishing the 
best presidential address I had ever listened to in 
record time. 

The speeches made later on were short and 
noncommittal, subjects like "The Ladies," "Our 
Chairman" and "Those we left behind," being 
preferred, until some one drank a toast to the 
young Queen of Holland, "for if it were not for 
the Hollanders we would not be here to-night," 
which drew the domino-playing Dutchmen, in- 
cluding the ship's commander and the ex-admiral, 
into our midst, where some of them remained un- 
til two o'clock in the morning. 



V 

CESAR'S GHOST 

The Botherdam steamed out to sea before 
sun-down the next evening. It was a fine night, 
the stars shining so clear that they appeared much 
nearer than usual, as though lowered by invisible 
strings. And there was a comet low down over 
the Eastern horizon toward England, looking like 
an illumined, stubby broom. 

Coming down from the bridge, the commander 
joined me in my solitary tramp on deck and all 
went well in our conversation until I mentioned 
that, to my mind, it had been a sporty act on the 
part of the British officer in pretending ignorance 
as to the location of Bolivia. 
The Dutch seaman stood still. 
"Pretend?'' the big Hollander almost roared. 
"That Englishman had never heard of Bolivia 
before in his life. Take my word ?' 

We were bowling along up Channel over 
smooth water while the sun shown, when off 
Plymouth our engines stopped again toward noon 
and another British cruiser, the Cesar, approached 
and sent a dozen men armed with rifles over our 
side. The officer leading them had long legs, a 
short hunch-backed body, a sharply pointed nose 
33 



and thin lips. His men were under-sized, partly 
bow-legged and untidy looking individuals. One 
of them dropped his gun on the deck, picked it 
up with a sheepish grin and followed the rest to 
the bridge. 

These hold-ups became tiresome ! While tak- 
ing a vigorous stroll along the empty side of the 
deck as an antidote against chagrin, a young 
British officer came out of the smoking room as 
I was lighting a cigarette and he at the end of 
one. I extended my case with a smile and a 
"Good morning." Smiling back with a "Thanks," 
he began to smoke. 

"You Americans have good cigarettes. We 
smoke rotten stuff lately." 

"But these are English," I replied and pre- 
sented the box. 

"I doubt it !" he laughed. "We have none such 
on board ship at least. It's a rum go in the Chan- 
nel here during rain and fog. Fve not been 
ashore during three weeks. First bright day 
we've had. Tedious! Quite a treat to board a 
neutral ship and to see other faces." 

The young man was quite sincere. Although 
"Naval Reserve" was written all over him, his uni- 
form fitted well and, anatomically, his figure was 
almost perfect barring his skull, a trifle too small 
in comparison to his perfect legs. His good man- 
ners and frank speech, but even more so his 
young, regular features and engaging smile had 
34 



reminded me of another young officer, wearing a 
different uniform^ and made me take to him 
strongly. 

"Well, why don't you get permission to accom- 
pany us to the Hook of Holland?" I suggested. 
"Then this boat would not be held up by your 
cruisers every now and then and, in reward, I 
could introduce you to the only girl aboard. She 
is good looking and bright.'' 

"Would I like it though !" the young chap ex- 
claimed. 

"Speak of the devil et cetera," I replied, for 
Miss Whieting, Mrs. Luebben and Mrs. Barens 
were coming around the corner of the deck. 
"Come along! I'll present you to the ladies, so 
you can have their company at least while they 
'wigg-wagg' on the bridge." 

After being introduced as one of our "war- 
visitors," the embarrassed boy addressed the ma- 
tron first, but chose the worst question pos- 
sible : 

"You are an American, of course?" 

"Oh, no," Mrs. Luebben answered joyously, 
"I'm a German, thank God !" 

"But you speak English so perfectly," our vis- 
itor stammered helplessly. 

"Aside of my mother-tongue I converse in 

French and Spanish as well as in English," Mrs. 

Luebben responded with a sarcastic smile. "Not 

an uncommon accomplishment among my people, 

35 



by the way. Being English, you of course know 
no foreign language ?" 

"Quite so V the young man answered with a 
blush. 

To my taste Mrs. Luebben, mindful of her sons 
at the front, possibly wounded or fallen by now, 
behaved rather too severely. 

"Our visitor would gladly safeguard our ship 
to Rotterdam," I put in slowly, "but I doubt if his 
superior officer would consent. He is under or- 
ders of his country like your sons are of theirs, 
Mrs. Luebben." 

"Do try to stay aboard and take us to Holland," 
Mrs. Barens gushed into the conversation, "we 
will give you a good time !" 

"I have no doubt of it," the Englishman as- 
serted looking at Miss Whieting, who had not 
kept her eyes from his face. 

By this time the Californian and Dr. Auer had 
joined us, the latter planting himself behind Miss 
Whieting and whispering into her ear. 

Taking Mr. Ereeman's arm I forced him into a 
turn around the deck, and when we returned Miss 
Whieting and the British officer were ascending 
the stairs to the bridge. 

An hour later on the Botherdam was steam- 
ing a Westerly course to Ealmouth, seventy miles 
to the rear, accompanied by the Cesar flying flags 
as though she had captured an enemy warship. 
The signature on the British admiralty's free- 
36 



pass given to our captain in Queenstown was in- 
distinct^ the passengers were told. 

^^Great Cesar's ghost !" I murmured at the rail- 
ing. ^^Is this a petty, post-humous revenge of 
yours on the Germanic barbarians you could not 
subdue after conquering Gaul and Britain?" 

When the last patient of Dr. Shields, the ship's 
surgeon, had left his room that evening and he 
had given me a cigarette, he closed the door after 
inspecting the corridor and took his armchair with 
a sigh. The Botherdam was anchored in the 
lovely, toy-harbor of Falmouth. 

"I consider it my duty to inform you that the 
English are furiously sore on the Germans !" he 
whispered. "The officers of the Cesar reported 
that the Germans, of late, cut off the right hand 
of every British officer they capture, heal him up 
and send him back to England." 

Staring at the ceiling to retain a straight face, 
I responded slowly: "Sterilized and dished up in 
vinegar, pepper and good ohve oil, such chopped- 
off hands might make even better morsels than 
pigs' feet." 

"I see your sarcasm," my host whispered, "but 
you do not seem to realize the position this new 
German atrocity may place you in ! I'm afraid 
that every person with a German name on this 
ship will be taken off to an English detention 
camp, irrespective of their American passports." 

In response, I handed him the document the 
37 



American consul at Queenstown had inspected. 
After glancing it over he handed it back quickly 
and extended his hand : "Great Scot ! The British 
will drop you like a red-hot firepoker when they 
see this !'' 

That night a vocal concert was held on the deck 
of one of the Dutch steamers from South Amer- 
ica anchored near us. The singers were German 
reservists bound for British detention camps, and 
their songs were familiar to me from the time I 
had spent as a foreign student at German uni- 
versities^ many years ago. Our passengers were 
hanging over the near railing and so I had the 
ofif deck to myself in the attempt to get away 
from those songs. Entirely ignorant of what is 
termed music, I had attended a concert but once 
in a blue moon for years and not an opera in a 
decade, because the sounds had produced unnerv- 
ing efifects on me. But this night was calm and 
the stars were out, and the songs coming from 
that ship reached me wdierever I went until, at 
last, the strains of "In the Home-land, In the 
Home-land, I shall meet you again,^' caused me 
to find a dark spot along the railing to sob, like 
a woman weeping over her dead child. 

At noon of the next day the captain of the 
Botherdam returned from shore, our anchor 
was raised and once more we proceeded up Chan- 
nel until midnight, when we were hailed out of 
the darkness : 

38 



"What ship is this?" 

"The Botherdam bound for Rotterdam." 

"Follow me !" the command came through the 
megaphone of a destroyer. 

Our chief officer came along the deck. 

"Where are you bound for now?" I teased 
him. 

The giant bent down to my ear and whispered : 
"To Hell !" 

Aha ! So the Hollanders were waking up to 
the fact that their independence, neutrality and 
freedom at sea, guaranteed during the piping 
times of peace by "scraps of paper," became 
worthless when the big nations were at war ! Evi- 
dently the "buffer"— and other — states with di- 
minutive armies and toy navies, will learn a big 
lesson during this belligerent mass-meeting. 

We were kept at anchor South of Sandown, 
Isle of Wight. Many empty transport steamers 
left there during that night and the following day, 
steaming around the Eastern corner of the island 
toward Portsmouth and Southampton. 

Most of that fore- and after-noon was spent by 
the artillery captain and his voluntary teacher by 
drilling and frilling the German language below, 
but when going on deck before dinner the clanks 
of the anchor chain reverberated through the ship. 

"Dropping another hook for the night?" I in- 
quired of the purser on deck. 

"No, they are lifting the anchor," he answered. 
39 



"To go where-to ?" Captain Mac asked curtly. 

"Possibly to Dover. I do not know !" the Hol- 
lander answered while tilting the weight of his 
body from one leg to the other, like a chained 
elephant in the circus. 

The Bother dam did head for those straits^ 
and the number of revolutions of her engines in- 
dicated extra speed and final release. 

Toward midnight the powerful searchlights on 
the rocks of Dover came into view, the rays of 
one skipping over the water and those of the 
other protruding far into the dark sky in search 
for the gate guarded by St. Peter, — or for Zep- 
pelins. Their flashes were rapid, about three sec- 
onds to each. 

"Watch this performance !" I entreated the 
artillerist at my side. "Yonder, due South, is the 
light of Calais on the French coast. At most, we 
are one and one-half miles from Dover rock but, 
so far, have not been ^picked up' by that light. 
Evidently, the British Admiralty have sleepy Irish 
boys on this job !" 



40 



VI 
PETTICOAT DIPLOMACY 

Fishy-Eyes handed me an English newspaper 
when announcing my bath the next morning. 

"Read it'/' he urged in a low voice but with 
bulging eyes. "A German submarine blew up 
three British cruisers in this neighborhood yes- 
terday morning." 

Unfolding the newspaper while in the water, I 
found the location of Weddigen's feat given as 
'^twenty miles Southwest of the Hook of Hol- 
land," the very spot the Botherdam, was over 
now. For the first time during this trip a feeling 
of possible danger approached me because some 
stray mine might collide with our speeding ship 
while I was in the tub, and so I quickly reached 
for a towel and laid it near, that St. Peter should 
not be shocked. 

After breakfast we anchored in a thin fog rest- 
ing on the North Sea, sufficiently dense to hide 
the near shore, and out of it came a toy torpedo 
boat showing Holland's flag and circled busily 
around our steamer as to assure us of our ultimate 
safety. I laughed out loud. 

"Good morning. Doctor !" Turning I saw the 
41 



Bolivian coming along the deck with extended 
hand. "I have found my mother-tongue again ! 
So sorry you never spoke Spanish. Of course 
you can?^' 

^^No. What made you think so?'" I inquired. 

"You were suspected of understanding mosi 
modern languages, and of other knowledge, 
by some of our fellow-passengers/' he laughed, 
"but I trusted you all the same I" 

"Thanks !" I retorted. "In retaliation I can 
state that I knew from the first day out that you 
were not a Spanish Bolivian, in spite of your his- 
trionic talent." 

"Why ?" he inquired eagerly. 

"Because you did not smoke I" I answered. "A 
South American using no tobacco is unthinkable.'^ 

The Hook of Holland was sprinkled with sol- 
diers and in the sheds of the wharf we made fast 
to, some of the rescued wounded from the tor- 
pedoed British cruisers rested in cots. 

The passengers of the Botherdam were 
crowded together on the deck of a tender steam- 
ing up the canal to Rotterdam, steeragers and 
cabin passengers mixed together. Brave Mrs. 
Luebben elbowed her way to where I sat with 
Culbertson, who gave up his seat to go forward. 
The matron was in excellent humor. 

"Oh, ye men !" she began. "You never under- 
stand women ! I now have a good joke on you 
in retaliation for your many sarcasms aimed at 
^2 



every race, creed^ custom and profession, your 
own included. Of all men I ever met, you were 
fooled best by a woman !" The mirth of the lady 
had brought tears to her eyes. 

"A woman ?^^ I repeated contemptuously. "The 
only woman which concerns me is my wife, and 
she is in New York. To whom do you allude?^' 

"To Miss Whieting, of course/' my tormentor 
answered, "the young girl who sat next to you at 
table and ignored by you cruelly, after lecturing 
her on her champagne drinking T' 

Mrs. Luebben had another attack of hilarity. 

"She is the Austrian countess Palfy taking im- 
portant papers to her government, and Mr. Van- 
dal is her husband, the count ?' 

A Dutch windmill had attracted my attention 
meantime and, besides, a steerager standing near 
whom I had seen in the ship's surgeon's office re- 
peatedly complaining of vague nervous troubles, 
was now listening attentively to our conversation 
carried on in English. 

"What ails you. Doctor?" Mrs. Luebben in- 
quired when I remained silent. "I have never 
seen you look so sober and old, as you do now." 

"Pardon my inattention I" I answered in the 
Saxon dialect which Mrs. Luebben understood. 
"It is Austrian-like to employ a woman cackling 
about her achievement before the job is finished. 
Apparently the petticoat diplomacy of the Met- 
ternich school is not yet extinct in the land of the 
43 



Hapsburg dynasty. I shall certainly make my 
apologies to the Countess Palfy on the pier at 
Rotterdam V 

As the ladies intended to rest a day in Rotter- 
dam and Captain Mac concluded to call on a 
diplomatic friend in the Hague, Culbertson and I 
left the wharf in Rotterdam first. We counted 
eighteen ocean steamers and over fifty tenders laid 
up along the waterways while riding through the 
city in an antediluvian cab^ and saw thousands of 
men in blue blouses lounging along the canals out 
of work. 

At the railway station my companion offered to 
buy the tickets to the border while I studied the 
bill of fare in the restaurant and looked for the 
renowned Dutch cleanliness. 

"Get me some Pall Mall cigarettes !" Culbert- 
son addressed a waiter hovering near us when he 
returned. Turning to me, he sniffed: "Dutch 
cleanliness? There is but one clean country, 
Germany !" 

The man looked pale. He had ordered cigar- 
ettes and had always made his own on the liner. 

Leaning over the table he whispered: "Appar- 
ently our troubles have not yet come to an end. I 
have no railway tickets. They pretend not to un- 
derstand me at the office.^' 

Many tales we had heard on the Botherdam 
regarding the difficulty of crossing the border to 
Germany. 

4A 



''Order the regular dinner for me and whatever 
you may choose for yourself, while I get the 
tickets " I answered. 

At the ticket window I placed my hat on the 
sill, showed my open hand containing twenty 
mark gold-pieces and demanded curtly in Ger- 
man: "Two first-class tickets for the next train 
to the German border ! When does it leave?'' 

"At six-thirty! You have over an hour's time 
for dinner," the clerk answered promptly, straight- 
ening up. "Your train will arrive at Bentheim at 
11:30 P. M." 

When he handed the tickets and the change I 
remarked : "My trunk must be checked. Where 
can I do it?" 

"Certainly, I'll send a man to assist you !" he 
answered, and he did. 

Picking out a paper gulden I handed the rest of 
the Dutch change to the interpreter after the 
trunk was checked : "Distribute this among those 
who assisted me. This gulden I will keep to re- 
member you by !" 

The paper gulden was bare-backed. 
"How did you do it?" Culbertson inquired 
when I gave him his ticket. 

"Simplicity itself !" I laughed while attacking 
the excellent thick soup. "You spoke English, 
with Anglo-Saxon ancestry written all over you, 
and I addressed the Hollanders in 'military' Ger- 
man ' On the ocean England is as yet supreme 
45 



but a single German is to-day more respected in 
Holland than the entire British navy^ for dread- 
naughts are useless on land and will keep away 
from the Dutch coast, I take it, for quite a while/' 

A large, blond Hollander and two Hebrew mer- 
chants were "talking war'' in our compartment in 
the train, the Dutchman denouncing the Kaiser 
and the others defending him. Meanwhile Cul- 
bertson smoked incessantly. He appeared to grow 
more nervous and had barely tasted his food, 
while I, well fed and content to ride in one of the 
first Hollandish express trains to the border since 
the war began^ was enjoying this impromptu de- 
bate immensely. 

After the Hollander had left I pretended look- 
ing for a match which the elder Hebrew extended 
(as I had expected), with the remark: "You 
Americans will find travelling in Europe some- 
what difiicult just now!" 

His broken English savored of the London 
variety. 

"Not so difficult as your attempts to convince 
a stubborn Hollander of being on the wrong side 
of the fence," I rejoined. 

The man sat up straight. 

"I did not take you for a Hollander !" he ex- 
claimed. 

"You were right," I laughed, "but I have spent 
most of a half century within a forty-two centi- 
meter rifle shot of the New York City Hall among 
46 



the most international population on the globe, 
and have picked up a few of their dialects and 
brogues. But why are you so sure of Germany's 
success in this war ?" 

The fellow-passenger eyed me suspiciously and 
shrugged his shoulders. 

"You may answer in German if you prefer/' I 
urged him on in that tongue^ with a twinkle in 
my eye. 

"God, the righteous V the Hebrew exclaimed 
beaming all over. "You speak German like a 
native and I took you for a Yankee ! Now I will 
tell you. My old mother lives in Galicia, Austria. 
I have been a money broker in Rotterdam during 
the last twenty years. This is my son-in-law 
and partner. I am in England every fortnight^ in 
Paris about once in a week and in Germany^ Aus- 
tria and Russia at least four times in a year. I 
have made comparisons. Ignorance is flourishing 
in all of these countries excepting in Germany. 
I can do very little business there. The Germans 
know too much. For that I admire them.'' 

"How are the Hollanders?" I queried. 

"You had a typical specimen of them here. He 
represents the mass. During the first week of 
the war the people stormed my office in Rotter- 
dam begging me on their knees and with tears in 
their eyes to take their German money and securi- 
ties for fifty cents on the dollar, as you Americans 
term it. I did. If their fright had lasted a month 
47' 



instead of a week, I would be a millionaire to-day. 
Jacob, open my valise ! Gentlemen, I have two 
bottles of a very good German vintage. Let us 
drink to the health, — not of the Kaiser and his 
people for they will win out anyhow, — but of the 
ignorants among the other nations. May they 
live long and prosper V 

Culbertson, by now interested, asked after 
draining the last drop of the Oberingelheimer 
Auslese from his glass : ^^And the Belgians ?" 

"When I travel in Belgium I have to speak 
three languages to do business, French, Vlamish 
and Wallonish,^^ the merchant answered. "Which 
tribe do you refer to ?" 

"I don^t know. I mean the Belgians as a na- 
tion,'^ the Southerner replied. 

"Good God !" the international broker ex- 
claimed. "You call a mess of eight million peo- 
ple composed of three distinct races, a nation? 
Belgians ? The very name is artificial and a polit- 
ical pretense ! There are French, Vlames and 
Wallons living there who never intermarry and 
have but business intercourse with one another, 
and most of their foreign trade is represented by 
goods sent by Germany through Antwerp." 



48 



VII 
BORDER KNOWLEDGE 

At 11 :30 p. m. the train stopped at Bentheim, 
the border town of Germany. The baggage was 
inspected by customs officials in a large hall^ the 
outlet guarded by uniformed men. 

While leisurely strapping my trunk after the 
other passengers had left the building, a civilian 
under a soft hat addressed me: "Please show me 
your passport.'^ 

I had placed two documents into my pocket for 
this occasion, my passport and a typewritten let- 
ter addressed to the chief of the German Health 
Office, and handed them over. The inspecter 
unfolded the latter first, read it and handed both 
papers back with a smile. 

'^^Oh!^^ he exclaimed. "You have come from 
afar to help us.^^ 

"Yes/^ I answered, "but you have not inspected 
my passport.^^ 

"Not necessary V the official replied with em- 
phasis. "Allow me to help you strap that trunk." 

He did and he went for a porter, advised me 
as to a hotel and my departure in the morning, 
and clicked his heels together when I passed the 
uniformed men at the door unmolested. 
49 



Culbertson had to share my room and bed in 
the border hotels but both were large and spot- 
lessly clean. 

On opening the three windows we looked into 
the foliage of trees and heard a nightingale sing. 
It was past midnight. 

"Now for a bottle of Rhine wine " I suggested 
and pressed the button. 

"Fll join you but I also must have a bite/' Cul- 
bertson assented cheerfully. "I'm hungry for the 
first time since leaving Bremen six weeks ago. 
Thank God, Fm back to Germany !" 

The man seemed completely changed. His sol- 
emn face and reserved manner had disappeared, 
and his wife and children were in South Carolina ! 
Here was a riddle. 

I questioned and he answered : "Germany is my 
home. I have my business there and my children 
were born there. Of course Tm an American, 
but my people in the South are fifty years behind 
my neighbors in Bremen and they get on my 
nerves after being with them over night." And 
he added much which can not be repeated here. 

A feeling of envy overcame me. Here was a 
pure Anglo-Saxon enjoying his life among my 
race, while I was but an outlander in Germany. 

Our host entered the room with a tray. Cul- 
bertson filled the glasses, saying: "Here's to Ger- 
many !" and then made for the food. 

"Can I do anything more for you?" the inn- 
50 



keeper asked. "Had I not better close those win- 
dows?" 

"Not on your life !" I answered. "But this 
cool air has made me hungry also. Bring me 
some Belgian baby-steak, or the hand of a British 
officer in vinegar." 

The man looked at me in blank amazement. 

"Why do you stare?" I demanded. "I have 
pure Barbarian blood in my veins and can pay in 
Barbarian gold !" presenting the twenty mark 
coins in my hand. 

At last the innkeeper smiled. 

"Fm sorry, but we have run out of these war- 
delicacies ! But did you bring this gold over the 
Atlantic?" he inquired. 

"Bought in Wall Street," I answered. 

"Then you were lucky in not showing it on 
board the Bother dam, for in that case the British 
would have taken you of¥, for gold is contraband. 
Good night !" 

I laughed out loud and felt crushed, because a 
German innkeeper at the border knew more about 
international law than a New York professor. 

"If the British had searched us I would have 
been your companion in some English prison," 
Culbertson remarked, "for I have more gold coins 
with me than you. Thank God we're in Ger- 
many !" 

"Why did you leave me alone with my baggage 
in the railway station?" I asked soberly, because 
51 



this did not coincide with Culbertson's char- 
acter. 

"I feared that the Germans might hold you up 
and if I had been found with you. I would have 
shared your fate !" he answered drily. 

^^Detain me at the German border !" I laughed. 
"What on earth gave you this idea?" 

My companion blushed. 

"Most of the passengers of our ship did not 
trust you," Culbertson asserted, "because you 
were always in good humor ! You spent many 
hours in your room with the American artillery 
officer, you even poked fun at the British officer 
in Queenstown harbor, and the American consul 
offered to take you through London with Captain 
McManemy." 

"Who told you this?" I inquired. 

"Not one of you two mentioned this, but it was 
rumored about the ship that evening," he re- 
phed. 

"Is that all?" I inquired. 

"No, Doctor !" Culbertson answered. "Your 
toast to the Queen of Holland, your friendly in- 
tercourse with the Canadians, your long walk 
with the Dutch captain, your kindly treatment of 
the young officer of the British cruiser Cesar, and 
the marked deference of the American ship^s sur- 
geon, — placed the rest of us on our guard." 

''Mundus viilt decipi!" I exclaimed, astonished. 
"Read this paper." 

52 










'/4:9i 



To the Health Authorities, 

HambujTg, Germany. 
Dear Sira.*- 

The bearer of thia letter, Dr. Augijst Seibert, is visit- 
ing your city for the purpose of studyii^ means taken by you to 
disinfect after contagious diseases. He is comnissioned by me to 
ascertain facts in connection with the matter referred to above, 
and to report the resiilts of his investigation. You will confer 
a very great favor on the undersigned by affording him any facili- 
ties that may be consistent and in your power to enable him to at- 
tain the object of his visit. We would like to have yoiu* methods 
of action, especially sigalnst the Asiatic Cholera. It is needless 
forme to say that any courtesy shown Dr. Seibert will be gladly 
reciprocated. 

I hCve the honor to be. 

Re qp eyrt full y yours/, 




^^^^^^^^^-c^ h 



Sanitary Superintendent. 



53 



Culbertson ran his eyes over the typewritten 
sheet the American consul in Queenstown harbor 
and the Botherdam's surgeon had inspected, and 
quickly handed it back. 

"Aha !" he answered. *^''Now I can place you, 
but I would not care to have your job.^' 

"Let us turn in !" I suggested and shortly after, 
while Culbertson snored the nightingale again 
sang and I thought of the time when this paper 
was signed by the late Dr. Cyrus Edson, then 
Sanitary Superintendent of the New York Health 
Department, to facilitate my investigation of the 
Asiatic cholera epidemic in Hamburg, tzventy-two 



years ago! 



Before leaving home I had found that old 
document in my strong-box and took it along as 
a help for identification and — evidently in revenge 
— it now kept me awake by arousing memories. 
1892! Then, like now, I travelled as a private 
citizen at my own expense and had no official 
standing whatsoever, but that paper — a mere in- 
troduction with a request to show me things— had 
opened the doors of the Imperial German Health 
Office for me, of the police department of Berlin, 
of the disinfection and water-works plants and 
of the hospitals in that city and in Hamburg 
where Asiatic cholera patients were being treated, 
and had allowed me to go with the disinfectors 
into the rooms of houses where new cases had 
been found, to watch their work. And, last but 
54 



not leasts this old *^^scrap" had induced Robert 
Koch, the highest authority of his time, to dictate 
his advice as to the effective disinfection of the 
cholera ships from Hamburg anchored in the 
lower bay of New York, so^ that it could be cabled 
that evening! 

And it made me think of Mr. Coleman Jackson, 
then secretary of the U. S. Legation in Berlin, to 
whom I had taken a letter of introduction very 
unwillingly from a former member of President 
Arthur's cabinet, ex-Postmaster General James, — ■ 
for that diplomat had been so surprised by my 
refusal to ask favors from his office that he had 
left his chair and, extending his hand, had ex- 
claimed : "Shake ! You are the first American to 
walk into this office and to refuse help, and I 
have been here ten years/' And he had forced 
me into a chair and had given me card introduc- 
tions with his signature to the great officials of 
Berlin, which helped me materially. 

Temp ova iiuitantur! 



55 



VIII 
A CLEANSING BATH 

The train left Bentheim at 7 :30 a. m. on the 
second^ like all trains I travelled in during my 
stay in Germany, and they always arrived prompt- 
ly. The passing scenery presented nothing of 
war for the fields were being tilled by men and 
women and the roads, houses and stations were 
as clean and orderly as in times of peace, and no 
one appeared excited. Only at railway crossings, 
bridges and stations, men in uniform were on 
guard. 

Culbertson left me within an hour and at 
Loehne I had to change for the express to Berlin. 
This ran in two sections, the first filled with 
wounded soldiers from the Western front, but in 
the second I found an empty corner. 

When barely seated a uniformed nurse came to 
the door of the compartment. 

^^Has anyone cigarettes?" she inquired. "I'm 
out of them and some of my wounded soldiers 
would like to smoke." 

"Where are they ?" I inquired, arising. 

"If you walk through the train you will find 
them," she answered. 

56 



Eight lightly wounded sat in one compartment. 
Two with bandaged skulls, four with wounded 
hands^ one with a leg in plaster and the last with- 
out visible bandages. 

"Good morning children V I addressed the sol- 
diers. "Fm a physician. Are any of you in pain 
or distress?" 

"No/^ a large framed sergeant answered^ "none 
of us have wound fever." 

While offering cigarettes a man with both 
hands bandaged remarked: "I would like to 
smoke but when the first bullet struck my left 
hand at the rifle I must have lifted the right one 
or it would not have been hit also." 

I lit a cigarette and placed it between his lips. 

"Of course you are wounded also ?" I addressed 
the sergeant. 

"A French bullet is on the inside of a rib/' he 
answered. "They will remove it in Magdeburg, 
so that I can return to the front in two weeks. I 
am used to it. Two Russian bullets have passed 
through my calves. During our first advance 
through Belgium into France I was not touched 
but while resting on our stomachs in open fields 
for hours with Russian aviators over us, we re- 
heved our feet by raising them and were hit. Next 
time, it will be an EngHsh or American bullet." 

"An American?" I exclaimed. "The United 
States will not join the Allies." 

"Possibly not," the sergeant answered curtly, 
- 57 



"but the Americans manufacture ammunition for 
them ! My brother is a foreman in the steelworks 
at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He wrote all about 
the large contracts to our father." 

I felt the blood rise to my face. A man with 
his head bandaged over one eye, relieved my em- 
barrassment. 

"Doctor, do you believe that I could go back to 
the front with my right eye intact?" he inquired. 
"The optic nerve of the left one was cut by a bone 
splinter." 

"Of course/' I assured him, "if you are not 
left-handed." 

"No," he replied. "Then I need not stay at 
home a cripple. My best thanks !" 

"Are all of you North Germans?" 

"We are Pommeranian Landwehr," the ser- 
geant replied. "All married and fathers of chil- 
dren. Pm the oldest, aged thirty-two." 

Moltke had pronounced their fathers the 
"core" of the troops he had led into France in 
1870. 

Realizing that I was in very good company I 
remained in that compartment for some time lis- 
tening to the reports of these "Huns" and, in 
return, entertaining them with my boyish remin- 
iscenses among the soldiers of 1870. 

Strange to relate, their utterances were devoid 
of bragging and curses and no harsh word was 
said against the enemies they had fought. In fact^ 
58 



it was like a cool, cleansing bath— this stay among 
real soldiers— after spending the month of Au- 
gust in New York, where the war had been fought 
over again by printer's ink squeezed into hysteri- 
cal head-Hnes and editorials savoring of a hodge- 
podge compounded of malice, envy and stark 
ignorance. No wonder dyspepsia is the ''Ameri- 
can" disease par excellence! 

Toward evening my train arrived in Berlin but 
my eldest daughter and her young son were not 
at the station to receive me, as I had expected. 
On entering her apartments she remarked : ^'Your 
grandson and I were at the depot, but the train 
contained but wounded soldiers. Little Paul was 
very much disappointed !" 

"Because his international mother, though 
versed in travel, never thought of a possible sec- 
ond section r I laughed. ''Show me your babies 
and then report on the casualties among our rela- 
tives and friends.'^ 

And it was well that I saw the sleeping children 
first before she admitted that the war had killed 
the man with the best brain among our clan and 
the only friend I had in Germany, while I was 
on the Atlantic. 



59 



IX 

WARTIME WOMEN 

A HANDSOME automobile^ picked up on the 
street, took me into the finest suburban section of 
BerHn the next morning where I ahghted in front 
of a modern, stone villa surrounded by a lawn, 
large trees and a wrought-iron fence. 

The lady of the house received me in a library 
adorned with old masters. She was of medium 
height, had massive blond hair and regular but 
cold features. She read my letter of introduc- 
tion at the window, came back and extended her 
hand. Her manner had changed. 

"Show me your credentials and tell me what 
you intend to do !" 

"My object is to personally introduce some 
measures in the treatment of epidemic diseases in 
the military hospitals back of the front, but my 
stay is limited to four weeks/^ I answered. 

"Why personally?" the lady inquired. 

"Because these measures were devised by my- 
self and because my medical education was ob- 
tained in Germany, paid for by inherited German 
coin," I replied. 

"Ah, I see !" my hostess remarked. "It will be 
60 



difficult to place yon, but your request is unique. 
That may help. Go to the Imperial Health Office 
first and be explicit. Then try the Red Cross 
authorities. Do not mind a turn-down there, be- 
cause they have more medical volunteers than 
they can accommodate. Insist on your demand 
and accept nothing else! Meanwhile, I will try 
to make an opening for you among the military 
physicians who have a caste of their own, as you 
may possibly know.^^ 

I bowed my head. 

Arising, the lady once more extended her hand. 
"Report your progress to me by telephone. Dur- 
ing your stay in Germany, wherever you are, I 
shall be at your service daily from 7 a. m. to 10 
p. M. Good success V 

When again in the automobile and beginning 
to think, I realized that I had met the second 
woman who had ever impressed me. The one had 
been a matron born on the fourth of July, 1791. 
Her husband had been severely wounded at 
Waterloo in 1815 and she had reported her ex- 
periences during the Napoleonic wars to her boy- 
ish grandson from America in an old house with- 
out a sigh or complaint, while the other, in the 
prime of life, was giving orders like a born 
strategist in a modern castle. What contrasts and 
yet, what similarity ! The same cool reflection 
and the same indomitable will. Women during 
wartime. 

61 



The director of the Imperial Health Office, 
Prof. Bumm, received me as a colleague, dis- 
cussed my case and offered his help but also made 
it plain that I would have difficulties to overcome. 
He insisted on my seeing Prof. Yochmann, the 
chief of the Institute for Infectious Diseases of 
the Berlin University, to interest him in my plans, 
thus avoiding my going near the front. 

Duplicity of cases. Twenty-two years ago an- 
other director of the German Imperial Health 
Office, Dr. Koehler, had advised me not to go to 
Hamburg but to stay in Berlin where I could 
learn much more about the fight against Asiatic 
cholera without incurring personal danger. Then, 
like now, I refused the offer. Prof. Yochmann 
has since succumbed to spotted typhus acquired 
in a Russian prisoners' camp, while I am still at 
large. 

Yes, war destroys the best ! 

The next stop my car made in front of the 
Reichstags Gebaude (parliament building), of 
which the German Red Cross occupied one side. 
Bismarck's statue looked down on me when I 
entered. 

The Red Cross people were busy, for a steady 
stream of persons were entering and leaving con- 
stantly. When my turn came in the line the 
porter made me wait until a page could show me 
up. Ascending massive stairs my guide suddenly 
stopped and handed my credential to a tall, lean 
62 



man with white hair and bronzed features in field- 
gray uniform who had come along bareheaded, 
conversing with a civilian. 

Pausing, the chief of the German Red Cross 
read the paper, placed his right arm around my 
shoulders and, smiling down at me, remarked : 

"So you came all the way from America to help 
us ? That is fine. I like that V 

Not accustomed to being hugged coram pub- 
lico I felt embarrassed for the passers-by had 
stopped to gaze and listen, but the handsome, old 
Prussian military aristocrat kept his arm around 
me nonconcernedly until he had conducted me to 
a chair in his room. 

"Did you have a good voyage ?" he inquired. 

"Excepting three enforced stays in British har- 
bors lasting a week," I responded. "The seven 
days at anchor made this trip monotonous be- 
cause, since long, I have been accustomed to reach 
Germany inside of a week." 

"Then you have crossed the Atlantic often?" 

"Since childhood about forty-seven times," I 
answered. 

"Heavens !" my host exclaimed. "I was at sea 
but twice. Never again, unless ordered by His 
Majesty ! Pm a landsman. What an interesting 
life you must have had." 

"Hardly as interesting as yours," I laughed, 
pointing at the war medals on his uniform, the 
only decorations aside of the Iron Cross, he ex- 
62> 



hibited. "You have fought the Danes in 1864, the 
Austrians in 1866 and the French in 1870/^ 

"Oh yes/' the old warrior drawled, "but always 
in the service. You must have had more diver- 
sion." 

"Impossible !" I rejoined astonished. "The sea 
and the people one meets during travel differ but 
in their color. The motion of the water and the 
emotions of the humans are alike wherever one 
goes and, in the end, become monotonous to look 
at." 

"You may be right," my host answered with 
a sigh. 

A civilian entered the room and handed him a 
paper for signature. 

"Ah, I'm glad you came in ! Here is a medi- 
cal friend from abroad willing to help," General 
Pfuel remarked, introducing me. "Please see to 
it that he is placed," and the prototype of Ger- 
man militarism extended his hand : "Good suc- 
cess !" 

In the next room things were different for med- 
ical civilians now looked over my paper, asked 
questions and shrugged their shoulders. How- 
could they place a foreign physician for a month 
when they had more of their own than they 
needed, ready to pledge themselves for the dura- 
tion of the war? 

Returning from a whispered conversation near 
the open window, one of the Red Cross ofhcials 
64 



suggested that I could possibly be made use of in 
the handling of sick EngHsh prisoners. 

Although feeling somewhat uncomfortable in 
playing the part of a beggar I refused, because 
the treatment of home-sickness was not included 
In my specialty. 

The door opened and another medical civilian 
entered the room. Another whispered conversa- 
tion ensued among the trio. 

''Tres faceunt collegium!" I thought^ feeling 
like a very sick patient at sight of this consulta- 
tion. But it was brief. 

"The physician from New York?^^ the new- 
comer exclaimed. "Why of course. His name is 
on file. The document must be in this shelf/^ and, 
on finding it, he told me to report to the Kriegs- 
ministerium. 

Outside of the building I drew a deep breath, 
for a load carried since leaving my house, had 
been taken ofif my mind. I waved my hand to- 
ward Bismarck's statue. After this I did not care 
whether school kept or not, for my name was on 
the card-index of the greatest fighting concern 
on earth, the German War Office ! 

Leisurely I strolled through the park, glanced 
carelessly over the closed shutters of the British 
and French embassies near the Brandenburger 
Thor, and ultimately handed my card to the ad- 
jutant of Physician-General Paalzow in the Ger- 
man War Office building. 
65 



"Of course, you wish to go to the front ?^^ the 
imposing, elderly officer in field-grey inquired after 
greeting me as "colleague'' and offering a chair. 

"I will go to where I'm sent," I answered 
curtly, for I resented being taken for a war- 
correspondent or battlefield-bum. "Any old place 
is good enough for me, provided I can help. But 
I'm not a surgeon and my time is limited to four 
weeks." 

"Self-understood !" Dr. Paalzow answered with 
a faint smile. "What can you do?" 

After mentioning the names of those epidemic 
diseases I had experience in, I asked for the op- 
portunity to show the colleagues in charge certain 
tricks in the treatment I had devised myself and 
had found effective for I knew well, that the most 
formidable of these war epidemics, typhoid fever, 
had been almost extinct in hygienic Germany for 
decades and that the military physicians there had 
seen but few cases. 

Waving my credentials aside without a glance. 
Dr. Paalzow, in reply, gave me a concise report 
on the condition of the German army along both 
fronts regarding the above diseases, which tallied 
exactly with what the director of the Imperial 
Health Office had told me. 

"I will have to send some telegrams concerning 
you," he concluded. "Leave your town address. 
You will be notified." 

The interview had lasted seven minutes. 
66 



A LECTURE 

A HALF HOUR later on I ate most of the cake 
on the afternoon coffee table of my daughter at 
3 p. M. (for I had not tasted food or drink since 
early morning)^ while Signorina Bagatelli, her 
Italian teacher and companion during the frequent 
travels of her husband, discussed the latest politi- 
cal news in her native tongue until at last our 
hostess replied so vigorously, that I leaned back 
in my chair and laughed out loud. 

"If you keep this up ladies/^ I explained my 
hilarity, '^there will be war between Italy and 
France in a minute or two !" 

"France ?^^ the Signorina inquired. 

"Of course !" I retorted. "Look at your op- 
ponent and then state to which race she belongs." 

"She certainly looks, acts and argues like a 
French woman," the Signorina replied astonished, 
"but, strange to say, I never thought of this be- 
fore. Doctor, although I have known your daugh- 
ter for years !" 

"It was great fun to see two descendants of 
Latin races go for one another on account of the 
German Kaiser's cause !" I replied. "My daugh- 
67 



ter^s maternal grandfather had French blood in 
his veins which accounts for her atavistic make- 
up. But daughter^ get your hat and coat^ for your 
husband's train from Italy is due in half an hour V' 

During dinner that evening my Holland- Amer- 
ican son-in-law reported on Italy's preparations 
for war, and my arguments against the possibility 
of the spaghetti-eaters joining the crushers of 
German scientific efhciency, did not impress him. 
But his wife stopped our political talk by an- 
nouncing that we three were to attend a lecture 
in the "Urania'' on East Prussia and the Masur- 
ian lakes that evening, where General Hinden- 
burg had done his trick against the Russians. 

"Dad may be sent to the Russian border by the 
War Office to-morrow !" my daughter argued 
with a glance at her husband. "This lecture will 
interest him. Besides^ I will make him buy a heavy 
overcoat." She arose and went to the nursery. 

When her husband had lit mine and his cigar- 
ette in the library, I broke forth: "This is rot, 
Paul ! You must be tired. Give me the word 
and I will turn her down." 

"Not unless you wish to go to bed early to- 
night," he replied with a sarcastic smile. "But I 
know your habits." 

"Why do you allow your wife to ^boss' you in 
this manner?" I inquired. 

"Because I had to '^boss' others in Berlin, Lon- 
don, Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Milan and Rome 
68 



during the last five years in the interest of our 
American concern/' he answered. "This is quite 
a diversion. Occasionally my wife is eccentric, 
but I enjoy it. We are happy children when 
together in Berlin. Thanks to the international 
education you gave her, her knowledge of four 
languages and of music, aside of her personality, 
she is the one woman for me V 

The lecture on ^^East Prussia and the Masurian 
Lakes" in the "Urania," a building devoted to 
popular scientific lectures, had drawn a full house. 
It was illustrated by pictures on a screen and the 
lecturer spoke without notes. His discourse lasted 
two hours with a pause of fifteen minutes in be- 
tween, but the audience never stirred and only 
applauded at the end, to thank the speaker. At 
first inclined to be bored as I was fairly well in- 
formed on the history of every section of Ger- 
many, the purely scientific statements of the lec- 
turer devoid of rhetorical clap-trap, bragging, or 
the slightest attempt to arouse political patriotism, 
so interested me that I forgot my surroundings 
entirely and in those few hours lived through the 
Germanic colonization of this borderland in 
reality. In the cloak room my daughter inquired 
in German : 

"Well Father, did the lecture satisfy you?" 

"Much more than that," I answered in English, 

"and when the pictures of Thorn on the Vistula 

were shown I thought of Marcus Koenig in the 

69 



Ancestors. You know my weakness for Gustav 
Freytag V' 

"Yes Dad, of course, but please converse in 
German !" she replied in that tongue. "You have 
often been taken for an Englishman." 

Her husband had gone for our hats and wraps. 
Looking up I saw our neighbors staring. 



70 



XI 

IN THE WAR OFFICE 

The next day was Sunday and the sun shone 
bright. During breakfast my daughter suggested 
that I had better attend the service in the dome 
to see the Germans worship and, possibly, to see 
the Empress. Although walking briskly (a dis- 
tance of four miles) I found the doors of the 
dome closed and was told by a polite porter that 
the church was filled to the limit. Turning back, 
I walked Unter den Linden after examining one 
of the captured French .field pieces stationed in 
front of the Crownprince's palace. Many people 
were promenading, most of them from out of 
town evidently, but they did not interest me, in 
fact nothing did, for I had but one thought in 
mind and here I was idling with three weeks of 
my two months' leave of absence gone. Rehears- 
ing for the thousandth time that I was not needed 
and not wanted and that, in fact, I was a nuisance 
to the German authorities I was bothering, I no- 
ticed that at last my natural spunk was leaving me. 

^^History repeats itself !'' I murmured. ^^When 
I oflfered my services in July of 1870 coming from 
America aged fifteen, the German military author- 
ities would have made use of me on account of 
71 



my linguistic abilities, but ultimately they turned 
me down, because my father was an American 
citizen/^ 

Standing still to get my bearings, I found my- 
self aside of the best monument of Berlin, that 
of Frederic the Great. He certainly had been a 
man^ for during seven years he had fought the 
rest of continental Europe single-handed and had 
won, William Dean HowelFs assertion in his Sil- 
ver Wedding Journey that the Germans had never 
won a war unaided before 1870, notwithstanding, 
and he won by his intuitive talent. He did not 
wait for others to give him suggestions. Sail eta 
simplicitas, and I will wait no longer ! 

The big porter at the door of the War Office 
building saluted me as an old acquaintance. 

"I take it^ you will find the way^ Doctor?" he 
addressed me. 

I did. Walking through the long corridor with 
many open doors showing stacks filled with docu- 
ments, without meeting anyone, I wondered. A 
bomb dropped here would have made havoc. Why 
could I, an "outlander," walk through the German 
War Office building alone? 

At the end of the corridor a sergeant saluted : 
"The telegrams concerning you have arrived." 
The adjutant took my card into the Sanctum sanc- 
torum, came back and remarked : "You will have 
to wait some time. Conferences !" 

I did wait while walking the floor of that small 
72 



waiting room, like a navigator his bridge. I at- 
tempted to think, but I never succeeded. My 
mind was a blank excepting for the words : "The 
telegrams have arrived/^ and I walked that floor 
for hours, mechanically. Again I tried to think 
of my long life, my wife and children. They had 
enough to live on, and I wondered why I was not 
shocked at my cynical thoughts and why all this 
appeared so trivial to me. In fact, my whole life 
seemed but a preparation for the one object now 
before me, to assist in bringing sick German sol- 
diers to the front again. 

Hunger asserted itself and I laughed, because 
I could be without food or drink for days and 
keep on walking that floor. 

At last the adjutant entered the waiting room 
with a smile. 

"You are to report to General-Physician Arndt 
of the 20th Army Corps in Allenstein, East Prus- 
sia/^ he announced. 

"That is somewhere near Koenigsberg?" I 
queried. 

"Yes. I was there last week. It took me 
thirty-six hours to reach it,^^ he answered. 

"It took me almost three weeks to reach Ber- 
lin," I retorted. ^Tlave you a paper for me to 
show in Allenstein?" 

"Not necessary. You have been announced by 
wire," the adjutant replied, "but please be seated 
and tell me what you intend to do." 
73 



And I told him in few words and short sen- 
tences and gradually the faintly supercilious smile 
disappeared from the face of my young colleague 
and^ when I arose, he struck his heels together, 
and with a hand-shake wished : "Good success." 

Hailing an automobile I raced to the Potsdam 
railway station, where information regarding the 
movements of all trains in Germany could be ob- 
tained. A dozen clerks behind a counter in a long 
room gave answer to many, after consulting huge 
ledgers. 

"Next train to Allenstein, East Prussia?" I re- 
quested. 

"At 10:55 p. M.," the clerk answered. 

"And when does it arrive there?" 

"At 8:16 the next morning. Expresses to the 
Eastern front since yesterday !" 

I certainly was in luck. 

On entering my daughter's flat she threw her 
arms around my neck, sobbing. 

"What's up?" I inquired of her husband while 
stroking her hair. 

"She thought you were lost or killed !" he 
laughed. 

"And he suggested that you might have made 
some new acquaintance and had forgotten all 
about me and your grand-children," his wife re- 
torted laughing again, with tears on her cheeks. 
"I could have killed him for that remark !" 

A bell rang. "The children !" my hostess ex- 
74 



claimed and rushed out of the room leaving the 
door wide open and her tots^ entering from their 
afternoon outing followed by their nurse, a young 
girl born and raised in Connecticut, U. S. A., 
made a bee-line for their grandfather. 

"So you defended my character?" I addressed 
the lady of the house winking at her husband 
when their children had made themselves com- 
fortable on my knees. "Thanks ! You were quite 
right in doing so, for I spent five hours in the 
building of the War Office and I am bound 
for the Masurian lakes to-night. But now I am 
hungry.-'^ 

The 10:55 p. m. express left Berlin on the sec- 
ond. But few civiHans were among the passen- 
gers, and before the start was made the scene at 
the station was a live y, military one. Three army 
officers shared my compartment, two from the re- 
serve and the third a professional, aristocratic, 
cavalry captain. While inspecting the bunch of 
German, English and French illustrated papers I 
had bought at the station, he asked permission to 
join me in looking at the pictures, and soon we 
were in conversation which became animated and 
more intimate when he learned that my youngest 
son-in-law was a comrade of his, now at the front 
near Ypres — and the "outlander" felt at home in 
Germany for the first time during this trip be- 
cause he was in the company of a professional 
German warrior. Blood will tell. 
75 



At 4 A. M. the train ran slowly through the 
gates of the fortress of Thorn on the Vistula and 
in the light of early dawn I noticed miles of pre- 
pared trenches and barbed wire fences^ ready for 
Russian onslaught. 

After a nap of two hours the Masurian lakes 
came into view, when the morning sun had arisen. 
Between them black, well-tilled, rohing soil ; men, 
women and horses at work in the fields, occasion- 
ally a patch of timber with trees of one size and 
then again meadows, where black and white cat- 
tle were grazing. In all, the scenery looked like 
a huge, well-kept park. 

The express train raced on and at 8:16 a. m. 
arrived at the last stop for civilians, the town of 
Allenstein. 



76 



XII 
IN EAST PRUSSIA 

One hour later on I was shown into the office 
of General-Physician Arndt of the 20th Army 
Corps, a tall^ kindly man in field-grey, with sharpy 
clean-shaven features^ reminding me of the pic- 
tures of Moltke. 

Our conversation was brief. 

"Your visits to our hospitals will be announced 
by wire/' Dr. Arndt said in conclusion^ handing 
me a passport stating that "by order of the Ger- 
man War Office" I was allowed to visit the Re- 
serve hospitals of the 20th Army Corps. This 
extended North to the Baltic Sea and South to 
the Russian border. 

The door of the hotel recommended to me by 
the adjutant of Dr. Arndt had been battered in 
by Russian troops and the silver and linen of the 
house had been removed by them. 

"No Russian has slept here/' the oldish maid 
laughed when she saw me scratch my head and 
wriggle in my clothes at sight of the coverless 
bed in my steam-heated, electrified, large room 
with bath. ^They had no time for sleep and were 
driven out by Hindenberg's men after a short stay 
and a still shorter fight." 
77 



An hour later on I made rounds with Dr. 
Schroeder, in charge of the division for infectious 
diseases in the first miHtary hospital in Allen- 
stein. 

"Our dysentery and typhoid cases sent back 
from the front are mild so far/' he reported, "but 
one patient has had very high fever for three days 
and I am worried about him, and I shall be glad 
to have your suggestions as to his case." 

This patient proved to have typhoid and pneu- 
monia of severe type. When we saw him again 
the next day he had improved and I told him so by 
way of encouragement, but he only answered with 
a blank stare. 

Dr. Schroeder smiled: "He does not under- 
stand you ?' 

"Have you Polish men in your army who do 
not understand German?" I inquired. 

"Oh no," my colleague answered, "this patient 
is a Russian prisoner." 

It is one thing to walk through the wards of a 
hospital where one has given orders for twenty- 
five years, but quite another, to go with a mili- 
tary physician through strange wards near the 
Russian border trying to interest him in your 
own methods of treatment. Personality, manners 
and the prestige of having been announced may 
assist, but, ultimately, one has to convince the 
German scientist by logic and result, to make him 
coincide with your opinion. 
78 



er, cheiri gun 



Deutsch sprechender ainerllcanischer Arzt Dr. S e i b e r t 
hat die Erlaubnis durch Verfugung des Kriegsn>inlsteriu^« vom 4. 
l0.l4.Nr-.l104/l0.l4.M.A.erhalteT,,die Reservelazarette des XX. 
Armeekorps zu besuc-hen. 



Allcrstein, den 



10 



1914. 





Generalarzt.u.stellv.Korps- 
arzt der. XX.Armeekorps. 



79 



Of all the work I have ever done^ that in East 
Prussia was the hardest of all. 

The delicacy of my situation as a visitor was 
invariably relieved by the manners of the military 
physicians who took me through their services. 
By avoiding giving advice unless requested^ and 
by only asking questions regarding the treatment 
leading up to the points I wanted to make^ I suc- 
ceeded in interesting one after another in the 
measures I had devised and found useful. As I 
made rounds during three days in succession^ I 
could see that these hints were utilized effectively. 

Requested to dictate, I had typewritten copies 
made of my notes on three pages, comprising all 
I had to suggest regarding the treatment of the 
six "war diseases" I had experience in, and al- 
though this was the shortest medical paper I had 
ever written, it proved to be one of the most effec- 
tive ones, judging by the letters and postal cards 
I received from East Prussia. 

Thus, as a medical free-lance, I went from one 
place to another, ate my breakfasts alone, my 
luncheons occasionally in the company of a col- 
league, but my evening meals invariably among 
physicians in uniform, oftentimes of a general's 
rank, frequently feeling embarrassed because of 
my civilian clothes and roaming occupation. Their 
talk touched medicine, science, literature, art and 
music, but never politics, religion or the military 
situation of their borderland. These men doing 
80 



their scientific work to friend and foe alike, ex- 
posed daily (at that time) to another possible on- 
slaught of the Russian army in this Northeastern 
appendix of Germany^ were evidently so preoccu- 
pied by their calling, that personal thoughts had 
no room in their brains. 

In all the towns children went to school every 
morning nonconcernedly ; the stores were open, 
and they and the streets were filled with people, 
but, of course, many men in uniform. All ap- 
peared busy. Loungers, like unclean streets were 
absent, as in every German town I had visited in 
the last forty-four years during peace time. And 
I noticed that in the late afternoon the "buds" 
promenaded in every town, and that, to my ana- 
tomically trained eye, these future mothers of 
German soldiers would win out if compared with 
their sisters tramping Fifth Avenue^ provided the 
judges could see them in the garb of the Venus 
of Milo. 

Strange to say, of soldiers I saw very little dur- 
ing daytime, but about three in the morning I was 
usually aroused by long columns stamping their 
nail-shod boots on the pavement when passing 
the open windows of my room, not hundreds, but 
thousands of them, while only occasionally grey- 
colored war cars containing officers and two pri- 
vates with rifles in their hands, raced through the 
streets while the sun shown. 

No automobile was to be had to take me and 
81 



the adjutant of General-Physician Arndt to the 
near battlefield of Tannenberg, and all my trips 
had to be made by rail, but again strange to re- 
port, wherever I came to, no one requested me to 
show my papers. 

The days passed. The weather was fine and I 
rarely had to creep into my raincoat. The food I 
obtained in restaurants and hotels was ample, 
well-cooked and stocked with venison, grouse and 
hare to such extent, that I returned to ham and 
eggs, beef steak and fried potatoes occasionally to 
remind me of America, and all such meals for the 
exorbitant price of two marks (48 cents). If the 
British seriously had attempted to starve out Ger- 
many, their gunners ought to have shot off the 
game abounding in the forests of that country 
before Jellicoe got the order : ^^Capture or destroy 
the enemy." 



S3 



XIII 
NEAR THE RUSSIAN BORDER 

The place nearest the Russian border I visited 
toward the end of my stay was Ortelsburg, a 
town of about 6000 inhabitants, picturesquely 
located on one of the Masurian lakes. 

After inspecting the new hospital outside of the 
place where a professor of technology stood guard 
in the uniform of a Landwehr private, I fell to 
viewing the trail of the Russians, for they had 
occupied this region during three days. 

Bullet marks on the walls of the houses at the 
Southern end of the town and large cuts in the 
steeple and roof of the Gothic brick church made 
by artillery, proved that fighting had been done 
here, but the complete destruction of every house 
along the main street by explosives and fire was 
not done in battle. They had been one to three- 
story modern buildings of stone and iron, and 
each looked as though an explosion had wrecked 
them, for the bricks and mortar lay in heaps and 
the iron girders were bent and twisted. 

Not a single house outside of this street was 
wrecked, and not one in it had escaped complete 
destruction. 

84 



On inquiry^ I learned that on retiring for 
^^strategical reasons" from a place the Russians 
were in the habit of marching off with a "de- 
stroyer company" at the tail end of their column 
composed of past-masters in the arts of incendiar- 
ism and bomb-throwing. In this case they must 
have been experts, for a cleaner job performed 
within half an hour, could not be imagined. 

It was market day. The wrecked street was 
lined by dozens of wagons loaded with farm pro- 
duce and fat geese. The Polish farmers with 
their small horses^ Jewish traders in long curls 
and kaftanS;, housewives with baskets and men in 
uniform — made a fine moving picture show. 

All were busy and if any were depressed, they 
certainly did not show it. 

Needless to mention, beggars were conspicuous 
by their absence and no one offered to show the 
sights and to tell the story. On the contrary, the 
few natives I addressed for information gave but 
curt answers with sarcastic smiles, as though 
astonished to meet an idler. Men were busy re- 
pairing the roof of the shelled church situated at 
the Southern end of the town, and others were 
carting away bricks of a factory ruined by Rus- 
sian artillery. 

It was a fine day, the sun was bright and a brisk 

wind from the East promised good weather. 

Passing out of the place I wandered due South 

for miles to reach a hill in the distance, expecting 

85 



a good view of the landscape. Along the road 
small farm houses reminded me of America and 
I stopped occasionally to talk to the women of the 
farmers. Not given by nature to probe into pri- 
vate affairs, the advice of a newspaper correspon- 
dent from Koenigsberg to question the women 
and not the men^ had been remembered. The 
women invariably stated that the Russian soldiers 
had demanded bread with pistols drawn^ because 
they were hungry and their tins, supplied by their 
government, had oftentimes contained sand in- 
stead of food. The women had placed pictures 
of Catholic saints in their windows, illumined by 
candles in the evening. Of a dozen of these 
Polish females but one reported that a Russian 
>had misbehaved, and that, on complaining to an 
officer, the culprit had been whipped with a knute 
(horse-whip) so that the blood streamed from his 
face. 

A barn near the hill I was making for attracted 
my attention. It was stocked with grain and 
three children were playing hide and seek around 
it and through abandoned trenches, the oldest a 
blond-haired girl of eleven. 

Their mother expressed the belief that the Rus- 
sians did not burn the barn because their trenches 
did not reach up to it and were the first to be 
emptied when Hindenberg's men drove them out. 
The blond hair and fair skin of her daughter 
were accounted for by the fact that her father 
^7 



was a blond German, now in the army^ of course. 

^^She takes after him and the boys after me/^ 
the PoHsh mother remarked with a sad smile. 

''^And how did you like the Russian soldiers?" 
I inquired of the girl. 

"I never saw them !" the young miss answered 
vigorously. "Mother kept me under the potatoes 
in the cellar for three days^ till they had gone." 

The woman stared in open fright at her child 
and began to scold her in Polish. 

"Stop that !" I interrupted her, placing my arm 
around the weeping child. "I'm not a Russian 
border spy, but a physician. The Sister Superior 
of the hospital I serve in across the ocean gave 
me her blessing and came out to the sidewalk to 
see me off. Here is her signature !" 

"I see the Cross and the seal !" the border 
woman murmured^ staring at the document. "It 
must be true what you say and Tm glad you 
came. You are under oath. Will you listen and 
tell no one?" 

I nodded, and she crumpled all up in a heap 
on the wall of a trench and without a tear, told 
her story of the three days of Russian occupa- 
tion. 

And while I listened the shine of the sun turned 
grey, the beauty of the landscape vanished, my 
spine grew cold, the ground under me seemed to 
melt away, and all my pride of being a man left 
me, for at last I had been brought face to face 
89 



with the naked, scientific fact that, unless under 
iron restraint, the human animal is worse than the 
wildest brute. 

Leaving the border woman, her children and 
the barn, I wandered toward the distant hill me- 
chanically until, at last, four fresh graves, adorned 
by crosses and flowers aroused me, at a crossing 
of the road. A sergeant and three privates of 
the 176th infantry regiment had fallen and been 
buried here, a wooden tablet stated. And I sat 
down and stared at those graves with envy in my 
heart, because I was not in one of them. 

"The 176th Infantry!" I soliloquized. ''I know 
the 143d, have seen it march, have heard its band 
play and was present when the youngest lady of 
that regiment was married shortly before this 
war, in a Madison Avenue church. Also I know 
her grave so near the Western front that she can 
hear the boom of the cannon by day and by 
night, while her young husband is seeking a sol- 
dier's death in battle.^' 

It might have been minutes but it felt like a 
half century that I sat there, staring Eastward 
toward Russia, when a sound reached my ear 
which instantly recalled the boyish time during 
which I rode broncho ponies near the Mississippi, 
— the click of a horse's shoe against a stone, and, 
sure enough, a troop of cavalry in field-grey, 
lances in hand, were coming up the hill. 

Arising, I awaited meeting them and when they 
90 



drew nearer I heard their horses pant, but sud- 
denly their leader turned into a road running due 
South, and he and his troop vanished over the 
hill, like a spectre in broad day-light. 

In the busy restaurant of the hotel in Ortels- 
burg I joined two middle aged civilians waiting 
to be served. They had been among the soldiers 
in the trenches at Suwalki and Stalluponen and 
had taken pictures with a large camera. Notic- 
ing my interest in the feeding and sanitary well- 
fare of the soldiers, they gradually dropped their 
reserve and gave me valuable information on 
these subjects. They appeared well pleased with 
the manner in which the common soldiers were 
fed and taken care of, but I pricked my ears when 
one of them said : 

^'Not so along the Austrian front! There the 
men are suffering from the inefficiency of their 
officers who allowed the Russians to cross the 
Carpathian mountains. They have no system ?' 

The man's eyes flashed and his companion gave 
him a dig with his elbow. Just then a waiter 
arrived with our soup. 

"Before you join our meal you must learn that 
we are Social-Democratic members of the Reichs- 
tag (parliament)," one of the men addressed me. 

"Impossible!" I exclaimed, astonished. 

"Why do you doubt it?" the man inquired. 

"Because you do not exist any more," I re- 
plied. "You are dead ! All of you were shot at 
91 



the outbreak of this war by order of the Kaiser. 
You can^t fool me ! Fm a New Yorker and I 
have read our papers, the best on earth. When 
the New York Chimes, the New York Earth, the 
New York Typhoon, the New York Holder and, 
last but not least — the Evening Boast have all 
stated that you are in Heaven^ how can you be 
here in Ortelsburg hungry for soup and roast 
goose? But, if you don^t mind, Fll run the risk 
to dine with your ghosts !" 

Then we shook hands, had a hearty laugh and 
a good meal. 



92 



XIV 
FICTION FACTORIES 

The tables reserved for the military physicians 
in a corner of the restaurant "Zur Traube" in 
Allenstein that evening were surrounded by quite 
a gathering, for Prof. Wernicke, now General- 
Physician and Chief Bacteriological Inspector of 
the entire Eastern front, was present. A large 
man of fifty-six, with a clean-shaven, broad 
countenance. 

''So you came from America?" he inquired 
when Dr. Schroeder had introduced me; "then 
you must sit on the sofa next to me." And with- 
out further ceremony he placed me to the right 
of the only civilian aside of myself, a man with 
sharp features and eye-glasses, who sat at the 
head of the table next to General-Physician 
Arndt. 

While the bill of fare was consulted Wernicke 
dilated on America and reported on the splendid 
reception the scientific men and the Health au- 
thorities of New York had given him in 1893, 
mentioning incidents, names, and places I was 
well acquainted with. All this with so much 
warm feeling, high expectations and good wishes 
93 




in 



for the future of the United States, that he al- 
most brought tears to my eyes. 

A waiter^ placing a partridge before me, inter- 
rupted and told him^ that I had been given the 
last bird at hand. 

"Here's the illustration of an American !" the 
scientist laughed with a slap on my shoulder. "He 
has ordered his bird before he sat down." 

"I am innocent/' I protested, "for Dr. Schroe- 
der, who took me here to-night, knew that a 
Masurian lake partridge would suit me better on 
my last evening in East Prussia than ham and 
eggs." 

"Where did you come from to-night ?" General- 
Physician iVrndt inquired, and I told him. 

"Send him to Stalluponen and Suwalki where 
he can see sights, compared to which Ortelsburg 
is a paradise !" Wernicke broke in, munching his 
food. 

"I am bound to my instructions from the War 
Office," Dr. Arndt answered with a shrug of his 
shoulders. 

"You had better curtail the roaming of your 
visitor," the civilian remarked, "for to-day he was 
not far from the Kossacks ! His American pass- 
port would not have prevented them from shoot- 
ing him as a spy, or from sending him to Siberia, 
if they had caught him." 

Prof. Wernicke had finished his meal and 
looked contented. 

95 



^'^Nothing of that sort would have happened to 
him!^' he laughed. "The certificate from his 
Catholic hospital would have prevented it. — But 
to change the subject: Why do American papers 
print this rubbish about German atrocities and 
treat us like enemies ? I was completely surprised 
when I heard of itP 

"If you were, I was not," I answered feeling 
very uncomfortable, "for I could not expect of 
them in wartime what they never practised during 
the forty-four years of peace, namely, to show 
fair play to Germany ! You and the German 
authors who wrote books on America obtained 
your knowledge in weeks of travel and at dinners 
given in your and their honor, while I have read 
New York newspapers and magazines during half 
a century and I can prove from their files that 
their attitude toward everything German has in- 
variably been maliciously hostile, an occasional, 
condescending article on music, art or science not- 
withstanding. This press campaign began in 
1864 and flourished grotesquely while the Ger- 
mans fought the French in 1870." 

"That was during wartime when people are ex- 
cited," Wernicke replied. "Can you give me facts 
during times of peace to illustrate your asser- 
tion?" 

"Certainly, and I will begin with one which 
concerns you personally," I answered. "Twenty 
years ago Emil Behring published his invention 
96 



of a curative serum against diphtheria^ the great- 
est remedy ever devised by human effort. You 
had materially assisted him in this for years. 
Nine months later on, in December of 1894, the 
Nezv York Herald, our foremost daily, printed 
long articles with large headlines for weeks, re- 
questing contributions for the manufacture of this 
great remedy invented by — Prof. Roux in Paris ! 
The medical advisory committee, indorsing these 
statements in each article, comprised the names 
of prominent local physicians, some of which had 
received their bacteriological training in Berlin, 
but recently. When at last a friend of mine went 
to the office of the Herald and threatened to have 
the editor denounced ^f or willfully spreading scien- 
tific falsehoods' in the next meeting of the New 
York Academy of Medicine, this paper published 
a cablegram from Prof. Roux, in French and in 
English, the next morning disclaiming any par- 
ticipation in, and giving sole credit to, Behring 
of Berlin, for the discovery of this so-called anti- 
toxin, but in an editorial of the same issue Prof. 
Roux was lauded to the sky for not having taken 
the chance for stealing this honor from a German 
and, nonconcernedly, the Herald kept on from day 
to day to solicit alms for the manufacture of Prof. 
Roux's great remedy.^' 

Conversation had ceased when Prof. Wernicke 
put the question and all listened attentively while 
he was being answered but when I had finished, 
97 



much to my surprise, a merry laughter from all 
around that table broke the silence. 

"This is very funny !" the big scientist spurted 
out while wiping the tears from his cheeks. "Have 
you more such stories to tell?" 

"Yes !" I answered soberly. "When the New 
York steamer General Slocum, containing fifteen 
hundred women, children and men of a German 
Lutheran Sunday School excursion burned in the 
East River on June 15th, 1904, with a loss of over 
one thousand lives, the New York papers pro- 
claimed her captain a %ero' before the victims of 
his negligence had been counted. I was at the 
dock that evening and the next morning for 
hours, and examined hundreds of burned and 
drowned human remnants of this atrocity. The 
then United States government, in charge of all 
steamboat inspection, made light work of this 
affair for the Slocum 'hero' of the New York 
press. Captain van Schaik, was pardoned after a 
short imprisonment so he could marry the nurse 
who pulled him out of the water. He was a 
descendant of an old Dutch New York family, 
while the victims of his and his government's 
negligence were but Germans and their children.'* 

"When the Titanic had been driven into ice and 
sunk by her English captain in spite of the wire- 
less warnings he had received the same day, with 
a loss of fifteen hundred lives including many 
Americans, the New York papers instantly pro- 
98 



claimed him a 'hero' and asserted in big headlines 
for days, that German steamers near, did not 
come to the rescue. When the Congressional in- 
vestigation, conducted in Washington, proved this 
to be malicious falsehood and that the only vessel 
which could have saved all lives, being even near 
enough to see the Titanic s skyrockets, had been 
the English steamer Calif ornian, the New York 
papers did not report this in large headlines on 
their front pages, but in very small print, inside 
of their sheets. 

"When the Viturno was on fire in mid-ocean 
during a gale (in October, 1913) with eight steam- 
ers around her, the men of the English Cunarder 
did not succeed in reaching her, for they picked 
up but one man drifting near their own vessel in 
life-belts and their captain steamed away, while 
the sailors of German steamers succeeded in tak- 
ing off the imperilled passengers and crew. Mean- 
while, the New York papers printed the following 
headlines: 'The German crew of the burning 
Viturno in cowardly mutiny V ' The captain of 
the English Cunarder Carmonia is directing the 
rescue work of all the steamers near from his 
bridge ! ' And, of course, they pronounced him 
the 'hero,' while the German sailors of the 
Grosser Kurfuerst received not a word of praise 
when they landed the women, children and men 
they had succeeded in rescuing at the risk of their 
lives, after the English had failed !" 
99 



No laughter rent the air this time around that 
table; instead^ one could' have heard the proverbial 
pin drop. 

^'But why this animosity?'^ the civilian inquired 
at last. 

"Upon my v^ord of honor^ I do not know !" I 
replied. "Of course, hearsay has reached my ears 
during many years concerning the motives of 
the New York fiction-factories, the galley-slave 
work of their poorly paid editorial writers, and 
the antecedents of their wealthy owners, but, 
as a scientist, I report but on proven facts.'' 

"But will not the Americans of German blood 
be a strong factor in ultimately moulding the 
opinion of your nation as to our cause in this 
war !" Dr. Schroeder inquired. 

"Certainly not while it lasts !" I answered. "On 
the contrary, their attempts at this, although 
praiseworthy, will but increase the hostility of the 
English-American press and not win over a 
baker's dozen of so-called neutrals, and when this 
war is over, Germany will not need sympathy, I 
take it." 

Dr. Schroeder saw me back to my hotel that 
evening. 

"Who was the civilian next to me ?" I inquired. 

"One of the highest officials of this province," 
he answered, mentioning his name and title 
(which I have forgotten). "Wernicke placed you 
to his right, to do you honor." 
100 



Of all the medical men I had met in East Prus- 
sia, Dr. Schroeder had attracted me most, not 
because he had received me better than others, for 
he had not; not because he was a modern physi- 
cian, hygienist and bacteriologist, for all others 
I met were likewise; and not because he had 
given up his practice to serve his country and to 
support his wife and two children on the salary 
of a reserve army surgeon amounting to 20' marks 
(five dollars) a day, for many hundreds of his 
colleagues were doing the same; but because this 
typical Prussian in appearance, manner and char- 
acter resembled the dearest friend I had during 
the years I studied at a Germany university, John 
Holding, a full-blooded Englishman from Cape- 
town, South Africa, who fell two years after we 
parted as British army surgeon, while England 
was fighting the impies of the Zulus under their 
chieftain Cetchwago, in 1879. 



101 



XV 
AMONG WOUNDED 

When about to step into the only cab left in 
Allenstein to reach the railway station the next 
afternoon, a Red Cross nurse addressed me : 

"Please take me along, for I have to accompany 
wounded officers to Berlin !^' 

"Self-understood/' I answered handing her in 
after raising my hat, for her speech and manner 
betrayed the woman of culture used to command. 

After relieving her embarrassment by mention- 
ing my calling, but without name or country, and 
praising the odd beauty of the surrounding 
Masurian lake region (for her dialect told me 
that she was an East Prussian), the lady dilated 
on that subject with a grateful glance until we 
reached the station. 

Alone in my compartment of the express I 
walked the floor for an hour thinking, with the 
conclusion that another old theory had been 
proven wrong, for if physicians had no families, 
I could have gone from the reserve lazarets of 
one army corps to those of many others, all win- 
ter long. 

"Will you take coffee?" a very young waiter 
inquired at the door of the compartment. 
102 



"Of course/' I answered, "but where does it 
come from?" 

"From the dining car/' the boy answered. 

"That means progress !" I mused while sipping 
the excellent beverage. 

For weeks I had not read a newspaper and had 
but looked at the pictures of illustrated journals. 
The result was like dropping tobacco, alcohol, 
ice-cream and candy, attending church or the 
meetings of medical societies, for a while. 

I can recommend this cure for "nev/spaper- 
itis'' to my fellow townsmen, the perusal of the 
editorials of the Evening Boast excepted, which 
may replace the sleeping powders made in Ger- 
many. 

When the tea came with the fried potatoes and 
steak in the diner, I sent it back and asked for a 
pint of wine from the banks of the Rhine. 

"May I give this tea to a wounded soldier?'' 
the waiter inquired. 

"If you add sandwiches enough to make a 
meal," I answered. "How many wounded are on 
board of this train?" 

"About two dozen, aside of the officers." 

"When will they get their suppers?" 

"At 1 A. M., in Berlin !" It was 6 p. m. 

"Call the head waiter/' I concluded the conver- 
sation and, after a consultation with this official, 
left the diner. 

In the corridor the Red Cross nurse I had taken 
103 



to the station in Allenstein asked me to look at 
one of the wounded officers in her charge who 
had a fever. The patient, a first Heutenant of the 
reserve from Hamburg, had his left shattered 
hand and forearm in bandages, but his fever had 
another source, which to a measure, could be re- 
moved. He had lain forty-eight hours on an 
Eastern battlefield without food or drink before 
he was found five days ago, and he told me of a 
letter from his brother serving in another regi- 
ment, he had with him, which reached him a week 
after the writer had fallen. 

On the other couch rested a captain with five 
bullet wounds through his right leg, without fever 
and in splendid humor. He was a professional 
soldier and an aristocrat, larger than his comrade, 
with a voice like a fog-horn, and I noticed that 
he treated the nurse with marked deference. 

The latter sat on a camp chair at the window 
and I on another near the door. The lady looked 
tired and worn out. 

"You must have a nap ! I have compartment 
No. 4 in the next car. My overcoat will serve 
you for cover and I will stay here and attend to 
your patients,'^ I told her. 

The nurse arose with a weary smile. 

"I will obey your orders for an hour." 

After readjusting the feverish man's pillows 
and giving him a tablet, I turned down the light, 
opened the window, told the aristocrat that his 
104 



comrade needed sleep, took the well hand of the 
patient and commanded : "Shut your eyes and go 
to sleep. I will stay with you until you awake." 

The train raced on ; the wounded warriors 
snored; the nurse slept under the ulster in my 
compartment, while I held the hand of a wounded 
man of my race as though he was my son^ and 
the reminiscenses of a long life passed through 
my brain. 

After an hour the Red Cross nurse reappeared 
and smilingly said : "The corridor is lined with 
soldiers. They asked for you, Doctor." 

When I returned the captain exclaimed : 

"Thunder-weather ! What entitled you to take 
off a parade of our men on this train?" 

"Nothing worth mentioning," I answered with 
a blush. 

"Your report does not coincide with the Doc- 
tor's answer, Countess !" the officer remarked 
curtly but with twinkling eyes. "He is an out- 
lander and this is wartime." 

"My only title while in uniform, Captain, is 
' Sister Marie,' as you ought not to forget," the 
Countess replied wnth shining eyes. Her weari- 
ness had evidently disappeared entirely. "Yes, 
Doctor, your fellow-conspirator, the head waiter 
of the diner, gave you away when he found me 
instead of you in compartment No. 4, and he gave 
me a full account of how your twenty-five wound- 
ed guests cleaned out his entire supply of Wiener 
105 . 



schnitzel in the diner^ and how he and his help 
had to carve for and feed those, who had both 
hands bandaged. They all behaved very modest 
and ate moderately, although they could order 
whatever and as much as they pleased. Each one 
took two cigars^ but all refused the two bottles of 
beer you had ordered. They will certainly remem- 
ber this meal, their first repast in a dining car." 

'^So you had ordered beer?'^ the captain 
laughed. "Don't you know that it is forbidden 
to give alcohol to the wounded?" 

"Yes !*' I replied, "but I'm sorry they did not 
drink it. I'm an American. Nothing pleases us 
more than to disobey. It is a habit with us. In 
this case I would have even taken my chances be- 
fore a German court, for I could have easily con- 
vinced the judge that I had acted in an emergency 
because I am the only physician on the train." 

"Very good !" the captain roared. "Could you 
not make an emergency case of me?" 

"No sir!" I replied. "You do not look worn 
out enough for a stimulant." 

"Pardon me," he continued, "but was it not 
also an extravagant American idea to spend a 
small fortune for these men in the diner, instead 
of dividing the money among them?" 

"No !" I answered with emphasis. "I have paid 
off an old debt I owed the fathers of these sol- 
diers. When sent to Germany for the first time 
I arrived in Hamburg two days after the French 
106 



declaration of war, July 21st, 1870, and could ob- 
tain no railway ticket. Being a little chap, aged 
fifteen, 1 jumped into a train filled with soldiers 
bound for the front when evening came and no 
official was looking and begged them to take me 
along because I came from America. They did. 
In the morning I had to get out and say ^ Good- 
bye,^ which gave me the chance to inspect an- 
other German town during day-time, but at night 
I jumped into another military train with the 
same result, and a third time the next evening. 
During three nights I travelled with German plain 
soldiers. They hid, fed and protected me; lis- 
tened to my descriptions of transatlantic life, and 
when sleepy, bedded me on their laps covered by 
an overcoat and even stopped smoking while I 
slept. The cars were third-class, with wooden 
benches, and the compartments were lighted by 
small oil lamps, but my sleep was invariably 
sound and refreshing. I do not recall a single 
oath or vulgar talk and not the slightest sign of 
drunkenness, although beer was not Werboten' 
during that mobilization. No ! If I had accom- 
plished nothing more on this trip than to pay off, 
in so small a manner, this indebtedness to the sons 
of the men who treated the little American 
stranger with so much kindness forty-four years 
ago during wartime, I would be satisfied." 

There was a short silence in that compartment, 
107 



after which the wounded aristocrat extended his 
hand to press mine : 

"In my thoughts, I have to beg off much." 

'Tlease continue, Doctor !" his feverish com- 
rade murmured. "While you talk I feel no 
pain." 

And I told them of my last trip across the At- 
lantic and of Miss Whieting, for they were young 
people, as yet inclined to romance, and none of 
them had ever been at sea. 

"Your story reminds me of the novel, My Offi- 
cial WifeT the patient exclaimed excitedly. 
"Have you read it?" 

"No," I replied. "Since long novels have 
ceased to interest me, because most authors have 
no correct knowledge of what they report on and 
usually deviate from reality, like the playwrights, 
who let their heroes or villains die on the stage in 
ridiculously impossible manner. Fiction is mis- 
leading and harmful, like smoking opium." 

"You are a callous medical man !" the captain 
laughed. "How could we go through life without 
delusion ?" 

"Much better!" I repHed drily. "Delusions, 
caused by fictitious novels, have brought this war 
about ! Science will win and end it." 

A guard came along the corridor announcing: 

"Berlin !" Time had passed quickly. 

The officers were bound for the second and I 
for the third station of that city. After the fever- 
108 



ish lieutenant had been placed on a stretcher in 
the Friederichstrasse Bahnhof, attempts were 
made by sanitarians to bring out the aristocrat 
with his plastered leg but without success until 
his soldier-servant^ a giant hursche, brushed 
them aside without ceremony and took the patient 
into his arms^ like a mother her child. 

"He needs no assistance ?^ the captain remarked 
cheerfully. ^'He can carry me out alone, for he 
carried me from the battlefield under fire.^^ 

While placing- my last cigarette between the lips 
of the patient on the stretcher, the nurse who had 
meanwhile stood among some elderly officers, 
rushed up to me and extended both hands. 

"Sometime in life, I hope to meet you again !" 

"Don't keep the Doctor, Countess/' the lieuten- 
ant called out, "his train is in motion !" 

Jumping on the running-board, I remained 
there holding up my hand, until the wounded and 
their nurse were out of sight. 



109 



XVI 
COMMUTING SWISS SOLDIERS 

After spending one day in making a contract 
with a large chemical firm for the manufacture 
of a certain remedy of my own device, so, that my 
profits went to the widows and orphans of fallen 
soldiers through the War Office, I spent the sec- 
ond in looking up the Social-Democratic members 
of the Reichstag I had met in East Prussia; ad- 
mired the buildings the workmen of Berlin had 
put up; still more what I learned of their organ- 
ization; lunched in the Rathskeller with one of 
them, and wound up the day by inspecting the 
^''twelve worst dwellings in Berlin" under the 
guidance of one of his subordinates. 

Nine of these habitations in old houses were 
within a rifle shot of the Kaiser's palace, waiting 
to be torn down for the high prices their owners 
demand. In the oldest three rickety stairs led up 
to below the roof, where two old men, skilled but 
roaming workmen, (handwerksburschen) , were 
waiting for the death of old age in a toy bed- 
room and kitchen. Both appeared contented and 
looked very much alike, so as to recall to my 
memory the description of the monks Bertram 
and Sintram in Freytag's Nest der Zaunkoenige, 
110 



who lived in the convent of Herolfsfeld-on-the- 
Fulda in Hessia nine hundred years ago. 

In but one of the nine famihes I found dis- 
order, because the mother of three anemic chil- 
dren was hysterical. Her husband was at the 
front. 

The three dwellings in the modern districts 
were janitor lodgings, in the basements of tene- 
ments. Again in one of them disorder, due to 
hysteria. 

"You have seen our worst dwellings,'^ my 
young guide remarked, after we had climbed out 
of the last basement. "None of the people in 
them starve. No sickness is tolerated at home, 
for all patients are sent to our hospitals, but we 
cannot change the character of some of the 
mothers.''^ 

"How about alcoholism among the women ?'^ I 
inquired. 

"That is practically unknown in Berlin," the 
guide answered. 

Evening had come before we were through and 
the electric street lights began to burn. Of course 
I had lost my bearings, for we had been four 
hours under way. 

"Would you mind walking with me to the 
centre of the town and answer my questions?" I 
inquired. 

"Certainly not," my guide answered. "I am 
under orders." 

Ill 



To those of my fellow-townsmen who care to 
learn the naked truth about the conditions of the 
laboring class in large cities, I can but recommend 
visiting the twelve worst dwellings in New York, 
in London and in Berlin after this war is over, 
for then the editorials of their newspaper on the 
difference between English "culture" and German 
"Kultur" will not impress them. And if they go 
a bit further and spend a week in each town, they 
will find ragged children and drunken women but 
in London; more bath-tubs in New York City 
(with the finest plumbing and the filthiest, ty- 
phoid-soaked water) than in Great Britain, and 
the most contented, patriotic workmen in Berlin. 

While travelling South I saw a train filled with 
French military surgeons and nurses in uniform, 
bound for the prisoner's camp near Cassel, in 
Hessia. They had come in exchange. German 
boys, wearing caps of their college classes, were 
trying their French on the hereditary foes of their 
race at the windows of the cars. At last ! If 
time had permitted I would have gone over to 
shake hands with my French colleagues, but al- 
though this was impossible, my pride of being a 
physician rose to its normal level for the first time 
since this war started ! The English had not taken 
German physicians ofif neutral steamers, and the 
French government had released the captured 
German military physicians condemned to prison, 
for theft, because they had taken French wine 
112 



for their patients; and again I held my head 
erect, for as long as scientific men dealing out 
their knowledge to friend and foe alike are im- 
mune against arbitrary military power, so-called 
civilization has not been extinguished among the 
warring nations^ entirely. 

Some few days later on, my international son- 
in-law and I were tramping the road between 
Ludwigshoehe, Germany, and Basel, Switzerland, 
a mile away, in a driving rain, after our passports 
had been inspected, stamped and countersigned at 
the last German railway station. A small boy 
was running ahead with our luggage on a small 
wagon. 

The border of Switzerland was barricaded by a 
fence made of twigs and shrubbery, which any 
Texas steer could have trampled down. The 
Swiss, apparently, were very much afraid of Ger- 
man transgression of their border. 

A young German officer again asked for our 
passports on the verandah of a small house, half 
Swiss and half German. Bareheaded and drip- 
ping wet, I handed him the first paper of the 
bunch in my overcoat pocket. It happened to be 
my free-pass issued in East Prussia, by order of 
the German War Office. 

"But where are you bound for now, Doctor ?'' 
he inquired with an intonation of reproach. 

"To where my wife and children live across the 
ocean/' I replied harshly while looking straight 
113 



into his eyes. We stared at one another for some 
time, until the young warrior at last stiffened up, 
clicked his heels together and saluted. 

'^'^Ah ! I understand now. Good voyage !" 

During wartime I went into and came out of 
Germany, without the border guards ever looking 
at my passport. 

Silence reigned in the carriage hurrying toward 
Basel, but at last my companion placed his hand 
on my arm. 

"Do not talk to me!'^ I spurted out. "Like a 
coward Tm leaving the people of my race hedged 
in by foes instead of shaving my beard off, joining 
their men in the trenches, and reaching an honest 
death in battle !" 

"Some members of your family were afraid 
that you might do this,^^ my companion answered, 
"but I knew better. Men of your age, experience, 
knowledge and kind disposition, will be inval- 
uable in bringing the nations together again after 
this war is over." 

We were the only guests in the largest hotel 
of Basel that night, and a train took us through 
the tunnel under the St. Gotthard in sixteen min- 
utes the next day, while it had taken Hannibal 
fifteen days to cross the Alps (over the small St. 
Bernard) 219 years before the birth of Christ, 
but, of course, he had 102,000 men and Z7 ele- 
phants with him. The modern Swiss had not 
been afraid to have their Alpine barriers toward 
114 



Italy pierced under the Gotthard and the Simplon, 
as the British the mud under the Channel, for 
they knew that a tunnel could be blocked in 
few seconds during wartime, and that an army 
from the South could no more cross their Alps 
to-day, than those of their Austrian kinsmen in 
the Tyrol. 

If the British had reasoned likewise years ago, 
their troops and war material could reach the 
Western war front in as many hours as it must 
take them days, now. 

Such a drastic change in weather, scenery and 
inhabitants, as occurred between the Northern 
and Southern end of the St. Gotthard tunnel after 
one-fourth of an hour's ride in the dark, I dare 
say, may not present itself to the traveller else- 
where on earth, for while North of the Alps we 
encountered early morning fog, occasional rain 
and but now and then a chilly peep of the sun: 
saw the Northern villages and shepherd huts of 
the mountaineers ready for winter ; the Germanic 
featured and framed inhabitants going to church 
and their uniformed young men entering and 
leaving the train without noise or bravado horse- 
play, — South of the mountain the cars raced 
down hill through hot sunshine; past vineclad 
huts, yellow houses, villages, towns and ruins of 
old castles, while the young men in Swiss uniform 
not alone conversed in loud Italian but also with 
their hands, shoulders and facial muscles, and the 
115 



prim cleanliness of Northern Switzerland had dis- 
appeared. 

"Swiss friends reported that their government 
employ their Italian-speaking soldiers on the 
Northern front^ and their Germanic men along 
the Southern border^ during this mobilization !" I 
addressed my companion, on returning from a 
lengthy conversation with the conductor of the 
train in the corridor, to our compartment. "What 
I have seen so far^ looks like the reverse/^ 

"You forget that this is Sunday/^ my son-in- 
law replied with one of his most sarcastic laughs. 
"The mobilized Swiss militiamen commute at 
week-ends to meet their wives or sweethearts, for 
from North to South, one can travel through this 
toy country with a good train in six hours.'^ 



116 



XVII 
A FAMILIAR ODOR 

My companion passed the Italian border guard 
(a civilian with piercing, black eyes and long 
mustache under a broad, soft hat) at Chiasso 
readily, after presenting his American passport 
bedecked by many endorsements of foreign con- 
suls, but I was turned back with the sweep of an 
arm because my passport had not been endorsed 
by an Italian consul, and the one nearest resided 
in Lugano, twenty miles to the rear. 

"You turn him back?'^ my companion ex- 
claimed with a dive for his purse. "Why he is 
an old man and my father-in-law !" 

For the first time during fifteen years of ac- 
quaintance I saw this scientific vendor of subter- 
ranean American produce lose his calm manner, 
so that I burst into a loud laugh in which the 
border guard and the interpreter joined heartily. 

And so we parted, he to go on to Rome and I 
to return to Lugano and to lose an entire day, for 
but one train left the Swiss border for Genoa 
during twenty-four hours. 

That evening I sat on the balcony of a hotel 
room facing Lugano Lake after enjoying a lonely 
117 



twilight roam through the old town with its nar- 
row, winding streets, quaint Italian houses and 
purely Italian inhabitants and along the lonely 
promenade on the lake front with its closed hotels 
and tourist offices, and back to the ghastly solitude 
of the large dining room and corridors of the 
hostelry, where the sound of one^s footstep echoed 
sharply through the grave-like silence. 

The air was calm and quiet. No leaf on the 
trees along the lake front was moving and, but 
now and then, the shrill tone from a steamer 
whistle sounded through the night from afar like 
the screech of some giant bird of prey. 

At last the moon arose from beyond the moun- 
tains across the deserted lake shining through the 
hazy atmosphere like a large, yellow coin of gold 
dipped in blood, and, gradually, an odor of 
mouldy decay crept into my nostrils, at first at- 
tributed to the dead autumnal leaves on the 
ground below, but a strangely familiar blend in 
it aroused me so that I drew in the air deeply, 
resulting in the conviction, that this smell of the 
dissecting room emanated from the many dead 
lying unburied on the battlefields of the Alsace for 
days and weeks, not many miles away. 

Of all the atrocities alleged to have been com- 
mitted during this war, the desertion of the 
wounded on the battlefields between the lines to 
slowly die of thirst, starvation and wound fever, 
and of the dead to rot and to pollute the atmos- 
118 



phere— for military reasons, is the one which will 
but bring utmost contempt to the minds of the 
scientific men of all nations later on, and the 
names of the commanders responsible for it, will, 
at best, be doomed by them to fameless oblivion. 

The next afternoon the Italian border guard at 
Chiasso greeted me with a smile, dofifed his hat 
and took one of my cigarettes when I passed him 
with my endorsed passport. A young Genoese 
lawyer entertained me in conversation during the 
hours our train ran over the plains of Northern 
Italy where hundreds of battles, known to history, 
had been fought by the Punic Hannibal, the Ro- 
man Caesar, the Gothic Alarich, the Corsican Na- 
poleon and his small nephew Louis, and, when 
again alone beyond Milano, I was wondering if 
this most blood-stained patch of Europe would 
not obtain its accustomed toll of this fluid before 
the peace treaty of this war had been ratified. 

The next morning early I walked up hill along 
the street-car tracks of Genoa to the end of the 
line and beyond, to obtain a good view of the 
town and harbor, until stopped by a sentinel, and 
for hours I tramped through the streets to see, to 
read and to listen. 

The view was fine, what I read was bad, and 
what I heard was worse. 

On returning to my hotel I heard that my 
trunk, checked from Basel to Genoa two days 
ago, had not arrived. Although the reputation of 
119 



Italian railways regarding the care of baggagge 
was not the best^ I knew also that my trunk had 
a habit of playing "hide-and-seek'^ with me when 
not on American or German ships or soil^ and 
after I reported this fact to the baggage-master 
at the station with my best smile and friendliest 
manner without effect, I changed my tone^ man- 
ner and speech and gave him five minutes by my 
watch to produce that trunk, or to prepare for a 
much warmer climate than that of Italy — and he 
took the first alternative speedily. 

In my hotel room half of the vagrant's lock 
fell into my hand^ so that at la^^t I understood the 
remark made by the young Genoese lawyer in the 
train after he had listened to my experience at the 
border : 

'^My people did not know who you were yes- 
terday, but they know to-day." 

No wonder ! 



120 



XVIII 
NOBLE GRATITUDE 

While watching the arrival of the steerageis 
from the deck of the Due a D'Aosta, about to leave 
for New York, a man with mutton-chop whiskers 
and thin lips addressed me in Londonish English : 

^^Have you a coin left for the Salvation Army?" 

"Certainly/' I replied^ dropping some silver 
into his tin. 

"When you say your prayer, on retiring, I 
hope you will pray for the success of the Allies 
every night !" the spy, in the garb of a Holy man, 
suggested. 

"Most decidedly !'' I replied with all the sar- 
casm in me while remembering that my last noc- 
turnal devotion belonged to ancient history. "And, 
in particular, I shall then pray for the success of 
the Japanese!" 

That day we passed Corsica and Sardinia dur- 
ing squalls, the former reminding one of the 
forceful originality of a single man and the latter 
of the mediocrity of the mass, compressed in the 
tin of oily conventionality, and the next morning 
we docked at Naples, to stay till 10 p. m., but I 
(declined to join a party of Metropolitan Opera 
121 



singers in motoring to the ruins of Pompeii at 
the base of the smoking Vesuvius, although the 
constant screeching of the dark-skinned natives on 
the wharf sounded through the ship as though a 
flock of pre-historic giant gulls had descended on 
a dead whale near by. 

My learned father had published A History of 
the Kingdom of Naples long ago and, while lean- 
ing over the railing of the Diica with the town 
and its grand surroundings in view, I wondered 
why, and also, why Conradin ^^the Hohenstaufe" 
and other Northern men, before and after him, 
had come South to conquer Italy and have their 
heads chopped off in the attempt, as happened to 
him. Rather a high price to pay for looking at 
fine shore scenery and Roman ruins ! Sure 
enough, sinc^ his death in 1268, many medieval 
cathedrals and galleries of old masters have been 
added to the attractions of Italy, and the chance 
of being infected with the virulent malaria para- 
sites of the Roman Campagna has been materially 
reduced by the activity of her scientists through 
governmental distribution of effective quinine 
among the inhabitants, nevertheless I was not im- 
pressed, not even in the museum of Naples, 
through which I walked that afternoon after 
dodging the dripping linen, strung across the 
streets to dry, in the poorer sections of the town, 
for how could the sight of marble figures chiseled 
out before, during and after Cesar's tiny wars, 
V22 



impress one now living through the greatest 
struggle of the white races? 

We spent the next day in the Sicilian harbor of 
Palermo where the island mountains towering 
above the flat-roofed, yellow houses of the town 
presented a fine picture in the bright sunlight. 

The Straits of Gibraltar were passed two days 
later on after an officer of a British torpedo boat 
had given his permission through a megaphone, 
and ten days steaming brought the Duca outside 
of Sandy Hook, where the British auxiliary cruis- 
er Carmonia, of Viturno fame, now in war-paint 
with a long gun on her forward deck, signalled 
condescendingly that we might enter New York 
Harbor. 

The food and the attendance on the Duca 
D'Aosta had been excellent. I had not experi- 
enced a minute of illness for sea-sickness never 
touched me although I had spent one and a half 
of the sixty years of my life on the Atlantic, and 
the good luck of the roaming free-lance had never 
deserted me on this trip, no more than on many 
others. But after the steamer left the quarantine 
at Staten Island I felt anxious to meet my family, 
for but one postal card had reached me in East 
Prussia since I left them, three months ago. 

The upper harbor of New York, known and 
loved so well by me from childhood on, ap- 
peared ominously empty of shipping excepting a 
dozen untidy ocean tramps anchored abreast of 
123 



the Statue of Liberty, waiting for their load of 
"neutral" shot and shell to assist revengeful 
political dilletants of France, the Russian Czar, 
and the real king of Great Britain, Edward the 
Grey, in extending the thanks of their peoples to 
the "Barbarian Huns" for safe-guarding the lives 
of their women and children by their scientific 
work, given "free of charge," during the last 
thirty years. 

How "deelighted" American parents, patients 
and practitioners must feel when they realize the 
true meaning of this "shot-and-shell gratitude" to 
"out-lawed" Germany, — after this war is over ! 



The letter reproduced on the following page 
from England's foremost physician, was among 
my accumulated mail. 

The document proves that even so eminent a 
scientist as Sir William Osier can be hypnotized 
by wartime into believing "first-hand stories" of 
men who fled their country at a time when they 
were needed there most, the Belgian professors 
he speaks of, — exactly like the consul at Queens- 
town, the Botherdam's surgeon and the South- 
erner, Culbertson, who read the New York Health 
Department's letter given to me in 1892 without 
ever looking at the date. Wartime hypnosis ! 
124 



From the Regius Pro/esrnr of Medicine, Oxford. 



?.5, September, 1914, 



Dear Seibext, 

Thanks for your pamphlet. If here, you would read 
a different story, and you could see the spirit of the 
♦country. The Germans against whom we ore waging wnr are 
not the Cerraens that we used to know, but these milit- 
ary barbnriFinB of the first water. You should henr the 
first-hand stories of some of the Belgian professors v/ho 
are now with us - they would make even your Teutonic blood 
boll . 

Sincerely yours, 



fT'^^s^^iAA.^^/^'^^ 



125 



Prof. Osier knows that, if the .Barbarian Rob- 
ert Koch and his German pupils had not devel- 
oped modern bacteriology and thus found the true 
causes of most infectious diseases and the possi- 
bility of their cure (formerly searched for by 
lengthy pen-and-ink antics in medical journals 
and by windy discussions in medical meetings), 
he could not now persuade British soldiers to have 
dead typhoid-germs, found by the Barbarian 
Eberth, injected under their skins to make them 
immune against typhoid fever. 

And my friend in Oxford also knows that 
if, for instance, the German government had 
prevented Emil Behring from giving his inven- 
tion of a positive cure of diphtheria free to all the 
world, as he did, instead of keeping it a trade 
secret for exclusive manufacture in Germany, — 
over one hundred thousand American children 
would have been strangled to death during "^he 
first year of this war, not to mention those in 
countries now at odds with the Barbarians, for 
England inhibits all exports from Germany. 

Or, possibly, such a measure could have pre- 
vented this war ! 

In conclusion, I can not refrain from reminding 
Dr. Osier (whom to-day I esteem as before and 
who may take this booklet as an answer to his 
letter), of Heine's verdict on the English: 
126 



"They have four hundred and fifty different 
rehg-ions — and but one sauce"! 



'Scientia Veritas est/ 




